


Root of the Root

by SedentaryZebra



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Also Featuring Hattori-Senpai From The Soccer Club, Bullying, Canon Compliant, Institutionalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 11:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5867506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SedentaryZebra/pseuds/SedentaryZebra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When an extremely famous pop star comes out as gay the day before Suga’s third year of high school begins, he thinks the only impact on his life will be the extra chocolates he will need to buy to console his mother. </p><p>He’s wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Change

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically an “In Spite of a Nail” style AU where only one small thing is different from the canon (a major Japanese celebrity coming out as gay in the background). Since the differences are predominantly behind-the-scenes and minor, this story is intended to be canon compliant. I do take some liberties with families. The title is from a line in the poem “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]” by e e cummings.
> 
> Also, I don’t specify in-story, but the premise of this is basically that I made a member of popular idol group Arashi gay. I won’t specify which one in-text. (It’s definitely Sho.)

The buzz of Suga’s phone on the kitchen counter barely interrupts the fluid chop-chop of the knife in his hand. He feels no need to reach for the phone. None at all. He is zen. The knife is an extension of his body. Zen people do not look at their phones. Zen people especially do not giggle at their phones. Zen people enjoy preparing salads. Salads are nice and simple, yet incredibly nutritious and…

Another buzz.

Suga realizes the chop-chop of the knife has gained in speed and makes an effort to rein himself in. Where was he? Something about zen salads. Growing muscles, maybe. Vital nutrients? Or did he cover that one already? “Vital” is kind of a funny word. No! No laughing. Where was he? Hm...

He realizes he’s looking towards his phone again, laying there all blue and unassuming on the counter, and frowns at himself in mock-scolding, refocusing on the flashing silver of his knife. He’s going to cut his thumb off, if he’s not more careful. Anyway, he has a feeling he already knows what the messages are. He won’t let them bother him. His mother is waiting in the other room, a cool cloth draped over her forehead, body-wracking sobs finally giving way to quiet, dignified tears. She would really enjoy a nice cold salad. He, being the incredibly attentive and dutiful son that he is, is going to make sure that she knows she isn’t alone at this difficult time.

Without laughing, ideally. Without laughing again, at least.

He pouts when the phone buzzes as he is sprinkling salt on the cucumber and massaging it in. This is reaching the level of the unnecessary, really. Harassment, even. 

One more buzz, and he can feel his right eye twitch. No. He won’t give in. He will give these cucumbers—and his mother, by extension—all of the attention they rightly deserve. After all, this is a hard time for certain people. Definitely not a time when people should be laughing. As his mother had told him several times, at a significant volume, when he had first heard the news from her half an hour ago and accidentally given his first, honest reaction.

Again a buzz.

His eyes drift to the phone, but. No. No, he is going to take one of his mother’s ridiculous idol group members coming out as gay with all the gravitas it rightly deserves. Or die trying, possibly. His gut certainly feels a little on the busting side.

And… buzz.

“Daichi, you menace,” he play-growls at the soft vibration, careful to keep his voice pitched low enough to not be heard from his mother’s bedroom. Dumping the cucumber slices into the bowl of seaweed he had prepared earlier, he dries his hands on a rag, doffs his apron, and gives in to the temptation curling in his gut. Or is it remaining trauma from withheld laughter? Or is it anticipation for how hard he is going to punch Daichi tomorrow? The world may never know. (Punching Daichi, he wants to say, but actually probably non-laughing stomach-trauma.)

He checks his phone, scrolling up to the top of the list of new messages.

\--i just heard the news.--  
\--how is Suga-mama handling it?--  
\--please tell her my thoughts are with her during this difficult time--  
\--is there going to be a new picture on your family altar?--  
\--keep fighting, Suga-mama!--

Daichi is a terrible person. Suga has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from chuckling.

Weirdly enough, the last message is actually from an address Suga hasn’t been expecting at all. It seems that Asahi broke weeks of awkward non-contact to send him a concerned: --just heard the news suga, i hope your mom’s handling it okay. sorry just wanted to check in i'm sorry if that’s weird. i'm just going to end this now. just say hi to your mom i guess. i'm sorry--

All irritation at Daichi purposefully baiting him dissipates entirely at the absurd message from their missing-in-action friend, and with it goes the tiny threads that have been keeping a shaky lid on Suga’s self-control. He manages to tamp down on the burble of laughter so that only a small snort escapes, fully aware of his mother, languidly distraught, in the next room over. He composes himself enough to send Daichi an angry emoji (let him try to figure out what the in-person consequence of that will be) and slides his phone into his pocket. Asahi’s missed over a dozen practices by now; it’s only fair for him to stew on an awkward, unanswered message for a few hours.

Suga mixes in the dressing and carries the salad from the kitchen into his mother’s darkened bedroom, trying to keep his expression and posture suitably chastened and obedient. He settles the salad on her end table and reaches over to gently fluff the pillow around her head. It’s difficult; her dark hair is spread across her pillow in a creepy halo and the sheets are pulled up so high that only her eyes, shining in that weird way tear-soaked eyes shine, are visible. There’s relatively little free pillow space to fluff. He pokes at the edges anyway.

“And how are you feeling…?” he asks as he pokes, keeping his voice level and gentle through some sort of superhuman feat. In his head, he pretends he’s wrapping the words “don’t laugh” around himself like a suit of armor. It’s not fair to laugh, he reminds himself. He knows how important this man has been to his mother over the years. He knows he should respect her interests. She’s his mother, after all. She deserves nothing less than his utmost respect.

The deserver of his utmost respect lets out a heartfelt groan, wiggling deeper into her sheets. Barely a sliver of eye is now visible between drooping eyelid and bedsheet.

It’s super creepy. And super hilarious.

Don’t laugh don’t laugh don’t laugh don’t laugh don’t laugh.

Suga bites the inside of his cheek again. It’s going to get swollen at this rate, but it’s worth it when it leaves him able to choke out, “Well, I’ll take care of the rest of dinner, too. You can just stay here, okay? Take care of you. I know it’s an upsetting situation.”

A shuddering sigh comes from the blanket-pillow monster that his mother has become. “I… I d-don’t know why he did this to me…” she moans pitifully, voice cracked and aching.

“I know, I know,” Suga soothes. Oh god his stomach is going to tear itself from his body and explode. It might be worth it. “Don’t think about it, okay? Just… ah, right, I’ll go take a bath. Because of my run earlier, you know. Sore muscles. Bath first. And then I’ll take care of the rest of dinner. Please eat your salad, for now.”

Suga hides his hands behind his back so his mother can’t see that they are literally shaking with repressed laughter. He speed-walks backwards out of the room, making vague soothing “hush-hush” noises as he goes. Then he turns around, sprints to the bathroom in his fastest running-for-the-best-setting-position run, turns on all the taps available, and finally opens the gates on the laughter he’s been holding in for what must nearly be an hour now.

Oh god, it’s so funny that it literally hurts. 

He falls to sit on the floor next to the tub, not even capable of standing anymore, body wracked with deep guffaws. Even before he realizes he’s doing it, he has his phone out of his pocket and up to his ear.

When Daichi answers, the first thing he says, even before “hello,” is, “Ow damn Suga you laugh so damn loudly I’m putting you on speakerphone.”

The second, from slightly further away but with the smile clear in Daichi’s voice, is, “I take it she heard the terrible news, huh?”

Suga literally cannot breathe. He wheezes into the phone, clinging to the tub with the hand that’s not clutching the phone. It’s nice and cool and oh god his stomach is spasming. He collapses bonelessly, resting his forehead against the tub’s side.

“Deep breaths,” Daichi advises him, smirk still obvious in his voice. Terrible, terrible friend. “It can’t possibly be that funny. Weirdo.”

“You… you didn’t s-see her,” Suga protests, voice cracked and broken and raw. Every few words are interrupted by giggles that he’s not even trying to control any longer. Oh man, he sounds like his mother did. The thought makes another bout of laughter well up and Suga squeezes his eyes shut helplessly. “S-she looks… she looks like she’s the monster in a horror movie.”

“I figured. Has she torn down her shrine to him yet?”

“She threw a potato at it. A potato. That’s when… oh god… that’s when I offered to take over making dinner.” Suga breathes in deeply, not caring when Daichi laughs at him for actually taking his advice. 

He then remembers the sight of the potato, flying through the air with determination only to miss all the pictures and then just rolling sadly through the shrine, missing every single one of the other accumulated knickknacks and trophies for the idol group that his mother had collected over the years, finally coming to a gentle rest against the wall. He curls in, knees coming up to hide his face as he howls. So much for breathing deeply.

“A potato, huh? That’s in the top four of insulting vegetables, definitely. She really is taking this hard. Also, seriously, Suga, I am so glad this is on speakerphone right now, are you actually dying? You sound like you’re actually dying.”

“I-I-I think she’s going to need to take off w-work tomorrow. And... I think I’m on dinner duty all week.” Suga is aware that his voice sounds like someone took his normal voice and dragged it through a rusty iron grate. Also, his lips are trembling. He rests his fingers on them, feeling his smile literally shake. The feeling is so weird it almost sends him over the edge again. “I… I might also be actually dying.”

“Hee, hee, hoo,” Daichi breathes audibly into the phone for him. It’s the stupid breathing exercise they tell pregnant women to use, and it’s definitely enough to bring on another wave of laughter. Tears, real liquid tears, are dripping from Suga’s cheeks to the bathroom floor. Possibly because he is not getting enough oxygen and is now dying. Whatever, worth it.

“So how about you, Suga?” Daichi asks after he finishes doing his awful pregnant woman breathing. And he’s still obviously smirking, because he’s still Suga’s terrible best friend. “Are you going to need to take off practice for the week? Is this a Sugawara clan-wide ailment?”

Suga giggles, but it seems like the potato-laugh was the beginning of the end. He’s slowly beginning to untense. His stomach twinges in pain, sending angry tremors up the nerves in his chest, reminding him of the stress he just put it under, but he simply uncurls a little, stretching his legs out. Ow ow, but nothing he’s not used to. The cause might be different, but muscle burn is generally the same. “And miss a chance to get my revenge for those texts? Not a chance.” Deep breaths deep breaths. Only interrupted by the occasional giggle. Occasional giggles are manageable.

“Whatever the revenge, it was worth it,” Daichi informs him. “...Is that water in the background? You know, now that I can hear something besides your terrible hyena laugh.”

“I had to tell my mother I was taking a bath so that I could cover up my laughing,” Suga admits. Breathe in, breathe out. “She was a little unhappy with me earlier, when I first heard.”

“Weirdo,” Daichi repeats. “And I bet the bath wasn’t even enough, anyway. You laugh like an air-raid siren from an old war movie. She’s probably going to murder you as soon as you leave the room.”

“There would be worse ways to go,” Suga says, cheerful about it. There totally would be. He is currently alive in a world where his mother is lying helplessly in bed, looking alternatively like a horror monster and a sickly drama heroine, just because a pop star she likes and has never met in person and will never meet in person doesn’t like women as much as he loves men. This world is a wonderful, endlessly entertaining place. And he also has a best friend who sees an equal amount of humor in the situation, which is pretty great too. Speaking of. “And you don’t get to tell me I’m a weirdo when your first reaction was ‘keep fighting,’ Daichi.” 

“Just because only one of us is willing to give your mother the support she needs in this difficult time, Suga, there’s no need to be bitter.”

The words “difficult time” make Suga giggle again. His stomach strains and he massages it with his free hand. 

“Wow. What a day,” he sighs happily into the phone. It had mostly been a quiet day, actually. No official practice and nothing to do but mentally prepare for the start of a new school year. After he had gone shopping that morning to make sure he and his mother were stocked up for the week, he had spent the rest of his time puttering around the house, doing a minor amount of cleaning while his mother typed away on her work computer. In between tasks, he had alternated between finding new game apps, new flashcard apps (so he could pretend he was spending his time productively and also so he could get a headstart on the year, because a person had to be practical sometimes), and messaging Daichi. He had gone on a decently long run, assuming he’d end a normal, calm day with a normal, calm night, only to come home to his mother in tears in their dark living room, creepily illuminated in green by the serious-looking press conference of pop stars on the television.

“What a past-hour,” Daichi corrects, who knew all about how quiet the rest of the day had been thanks to the aforementioned messaging. Suga just giggles at the correction. And also at the memory of his mother looking all green and alien-like in her grief. “And probably a future-rest of the night, if I know your mother.”

“No, she’ll cry herself to sleep in a little while.” Daichi makes a disbelieving noise as Suga bends forward, using the opportunity to stretch out his stomach muscles, reaching for his toes. He should probably shut off the sink and shower before the water bill becomes particularly bad, also. “No, she will,” he repeats, switching the hand that’s holding his phone and twisting around to turn off a few of the taps. “I’ll make her dinner and tuck her in and then--”

“And then sleep, because we have practice tomorrow morning?”

Ah. A little hairline crack in a voice that is usually hard as diamond and deep as the ocean. Suga’s focus immediately returns laser-like to the phone in his hand. “Daichi,” he says, voice still a little rough from his heavy bout of laughter. He just makes Daichi’s name even more drawn out and sing-song to make up for it, letting each syllable roll off his tongue in turn. “We do have practice in the morning. And it will be a good practice. Even if no first years are interested at all, which we both know won’t happen because Shimizu is recruiting for us, we still have a full team. Even without, you know, all our missing limbs. And missing limbs have a tendency to return, right? Like phantom limb syndrome.”

Daichi just huffs at him, but it’s the half-laughing “you’re right, you are a god of the analogy, Sugawara” huff, not the quiet “I’ve gone into a weirdly uncharacteristic downward spiral of uncertainty, help me Sugawara” huff, so that’s fine.

It also reminds Suga of the message he received earlier. “Ah,” he says brightly, pulling up his knees to rest his chin on them. “Also, for your information, you were not the only one to lend my mother a supportive ear at this difficult time, you know. You had competition.”

“Oh?” 

“The elusive Azumane Asahi sent a very heart-felt apology or five.”

Suga can practically feel the darkness emanating from his phone as Daichi growls, “That ratty-haired bastard. Cowardly giant. Hiding behind a cell phone like a freakishly giant baby.”

“Now, now, Daichi,” Suga hums, grinning. Daichi is nothing if not predictable. Suga stretches out one leg and then the other, twisting his shoulders to try to loosen his abdominal muscles further. “At least this way we know he’s still alive, right? And that he wasn’t mistakenly confused for a serial killer and locked up somewhere?” Stretch and stretch. The laughter pain is losing a little of its grip, which is nice. The room is all pleasant and warm now, from the taps running hot for so long, and the quiet gurgle of the bath water in the background makes it seem like the entire world is just Suga and Dachi’s voice, tethered across time and distance through some sort of phone magic.

“I suppose that’s true,” Daichi allows, voice still dark. Suga knows that he’s making that face that makes all the younger students (and Asahi) quail in their little shoes. He doesn’t bother holding in the bubble of laughter, even when his stomach sharply protests the mistreatment. “Stop laughing at me, Suga. Whose side are you on, vice captain?”

“Always yours,” Suga says immediately, because he is. It doesn’t require thinking. It also doesn’t make the situation any less amusing. “Which is why I’m going to remind you that volleyball is his life, too, and he’ll be back.” Probably. No. Definitely. The three of them have spent too many years trying to get to this point in time, to this point of their lives, for Asahi to be scared away from it all. Even if Suga has to hunt him down himself, Asahi will be back. Suga refuses to entertain any fear to the contrary.

“Yeah, I know,” Daichi says, with conviction. Sometimes Suga thinks he’s reassuring himself more than Daichi, when it comes to Asahi, like Daichi has some sort of weird wing spiker intuition about him. “Go take a bath before you flood the house and your mother winds up starving, Suga.”

“Bossy.” Suga finally stands up. His legs shake a little, but support him. That’s good. He shuts off the bath water, deeming the tub filled enough.

“It’s why they made me the captain,” Daichi returns on the other end of the phone. “Talk to you later?”

“I’ll message you before bed,” Suga promises. “... I might share a picture of my mother that you will show no one under pain of death.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” Daichi says, laughing as Suga mumbles “so much for the supportive ear, hm?” at him. Any cracks in Daichi’s voice are gone like they never existed. 

Suga’s grin widens. Mission: success. “Later, Daichi.”

“Later, Suga.”

Suga will need to be very quick with his shower and barely use the bath if his cover story is going to be believable. He presses the back of his hand against his mouth, shielding a last quiet giggle from being heard. Still. It was worth it.

He tries to tell himself this the next morning, when his muscles are reminding him that they didn’t receive their normal cooldown after that run yesterday. He gets to practice a little later than usual, beaten even by Tanaka, having taken his walk from the station to the school slower than he normally prefers. 

He glances around the gym as soon as he enters, using his late arrival to scope out his teammates as they chat and stretch. Tanaka Ennoshita Narita Kinoshita Sawamura. And Sugawara, of course. No one scared off by the new year. Six people. Technically a complete volleyball team, even if… Well, nothing to fear now. It’s not like he didn’t believe himself when he was reassuring Daichi. It is just nice to be right.

“Suga, you’re late,” Daichi says disapprovingly, jogging up to his side as Suga slips on his knee guards. He must’ve been waiting for him. Suga straightens up and immediately smacks him in the gut. Daichi barely flinches, the skin under Suga’s hand all muscle and resolve so strong it’s basically a steel wall. Cheater. Suga pouts at him and Daichi shrugs, that jerk. “It’s not like I didn’t know I had that coming.”

“Yes, well, you could at least pretend. For the sake of my delicate, besieged feelings.” Suga shrugs out of his team jacket and goes to sit and stretch next to Tanaka, at the end of the row, not surprised when Daichi follows him. “After all, you know why I’m late. I had to bring my mother breakfast this morning. She can’t leave her bed.” He arches into a calf stretch, hands on the floor.

“Your mom okay, Suga-san?” Tanaka grunts towards the floor, mimicking his stretch. “Nothin’ happened, did it?”

“Just a hard hit from a press conference yesterday,” Suga says lightly.

And he knows that the matter is a bigger deal than he thought it would be when even half-asleep Tanaka nods in understanding and says, “Ah, she was a fan, then?”

“The biggest,” Daichi answers dryly, “if you ever asked her. Which I do not advise. Especially not now.” He puts on a scary face and shakes his head at Tanaka, as though trying to communicate the pain of years of listening to Suga’s mother wax rhapsodic about the man’s singing and acting and abdominal muscles. Since no face in the world can fully communicate that pain, Tanaka mostly looks confused.

“She has a shrine,” Suga informs Tanaka helpfully. “She’s taking it a little hard.”

“Huh, I see,” Tanaka says. 

The three of them start doing quadricep stretches and Suga thinks the whole thing might be dropped until Daichi placidly remarks, “She’s probably not alone. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are a bunch of girls at school today who’re pretty upset,” like a man lucky enough to not have a pop singer-obsessed mother and therefore only tangentially involved in the affair. Tanaka noticeably brightens at the comment, though, sleepiness gone as he looks over at Daichi with sharp, attentive eyes. 

Suga focuses on stretching his hamstrings, not on laughing. “Probably not Shimizu, though,” he can’t help saying brightly, because there’s a limit to self-control. “She doesn’t seem the type to care much either way.” 

It’s adorable how Tanaka wilts. Like a delicate orchid exposed to a sudden blast of winter air. Underclassmen are so cute with their hopes and dreams and crushed love.

“No, probably not,” Daichi says, glancing over at Suga like he’s confused why Suga would feel the need to say such a thing and thus missing the entirely hilarious way Tanaka jolts as the second sword is thrust in. The way Daichi’s eyes slide back to Tanaka briefly before focusing on his toes for his toe-touches belies his confusion, though. Bad captain, Daichi, Suga thinks virtuously, taking satisfaction in his underclassman’s pain like that.

Ennoshita, Kinoshita, and Narita are already done stretching, chatting quietly as they put up the nets. Suga claps his hands together. “Well, it’s no matter to us, right? C’mon, it’s all I’m hearing about at home. Let’s not let it follow us to club. It won’t be too long before the Inter-High preliminaries, right? We have no time to lose.”

Daichi and Tanaka both nod in agreement and Daichi moves off to catch the attention of the rest of the team, calling out a quick, “Laps, then some three-on-three to warm up!”

A nice, simple start to ease them back in. Not scary enough to send less invested teammates running, and not quite light enough to make them think they aren’t being taken seriously. Well done, Daichi.

As they start jogging in tandem, circling the gym, Tanaka asks Suga, “Have you heard anything about any possible recruits? Did anyone we saw at the Junior-Highs come to Karasuno?”

“Hm?” Suga realizes he is looking towards Daichi’s back as his friend runs with the non-Tanaka second years, apparently listening intently to some observation Ennoshita is making. He wonders if it is some idea for practice. Daichi has clearly been struggling with the idea of being coach as well as captain for the past few months. Suga knows he hasn’t been the only one to notice. Ennoshita is observant and tends to have good ideas, though he is normally quiet about them. Suga hopes it is a fruitful talk.

… Ah, right, Tanaka had asked him about the recruits. “Not yet,” Suga says, rounding the corner, the steady slap of his and Tanaka’s shoes in harmony soothing in that unifying, comforting way that work with the volleyball team often is. “Not that we know, at least. Shimizu’s spearheading the effort to collect names. We’ll probably know before the end of the day. Shimizu is very efficient.”

“Kiyoko-san is the most talented person in the world,” Tanaka agrees, with the air of someone proselytizing for their god.

“One of them, probably,” Suga allows, grinning. Underclassmen are seriously the cutest. He hopes that they do get some first years, if only for entertainment value. And for the way it would probably ease the tense line of Daichi’s shoulders, at least a little bit.

He realizes he is looking at Daichi’s back again and his smile flattens out. They already have enough to worry about this year: a teacher sponsor new to the sport, barely enough players for a full team, no coach, and that is all in addition to it being their third year, with all the stress, exams, and parental pressure that entails.

They deserve a little luck, at least. Something good will have to happen. Just to even out the karmic scales. 

Suga wonders if the fact that he would rather the good thing be volleyball-related than school-related means that he is a bad teenager, son, or Japanese citizen in general.

The question follows him through practice, as they work on serves and sets, and is still there hours later as they are breaking down the nets and fixing up the room. The concern intensifies as he grabs mops for Tanaka and himself, making purposeful eye contact with the broken mop in the corner of the room, not allowing it to intimidate him. Good karma. Seriously, the team is owed some major good karma. It doesn’t make him a bad person for thinking that. Just an observant one.

Speaking of deserving good karma… “How’s Nishinoya doing?” Suga asks Tanaka as they finish cleaning the gym floor. “Have you spoken with him recently?”

Tanaka shrugs. “Nah, he’s real bad about contact outside of volleyball stuff. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s gone on some kind of monk-like pilgrimage over the whole situation. You know, sitting under a waterfall somewhere to atone.”

Suga grins at the mental image. A waterfall would entirely wreck Nishinoya’s hair. Black threads plastered to his face, the little blond tuft stuck straight between his eyes… At his height, he would look like a drowned elementary-schooler. He’d be wearing a shirt that would say ‘one’s act, one’s profit’ or something. Well, until the waterfall made the words melt all the way down his back. Or maybe engraved them into his skin. Which Nishinoya would likely approve of in the strongest possible terms.

Suga hides a laugh behind his hand. At Tanaka’s look, all he says is, “That does sound like him.”

Tanaka scrunches his face up, like he knows he is still missing the joke, but simply sighs rather than press the issue. “I probably still won’t hear much now that school’s back, since we’re in different classes and all. Man, it’ll be good to have him back on the team.”

“Just a couple more weeks,” Suga says. He isn’t sure who he is trying to offer more reassurance to, Tanaka or himself. Tanaka doesn’t even look like he is listening anymore, eyes glazed over and far away as he clings to his now-stationary mop. Suga smiles. Himself, then. That’s fine too. It’s not just underclassmen who need reassurance, after all.

“Noya-san…” Tanaka suddenly says, throwing up an arm to cover his eyes. “To have him back… The man who understands the pulse of my heart better than any other…”

Suga pauses in his own mopping, too nonplussed even to be amused by Tanaka’s dramatics, then glances in the direction Tanaka has been staring. Ah. Shimizu is standing near the door, apparently talking to Daichi about something. She is glancing in their direction every few words, which is unusual. Shimizu is normally so shy that it takes all of her focus on her conversational partner for her to not give the whole affair up mid-sentence as a bad job. It does explain Tanaka’s… well, Tanaka’s everything.

“We’re not worthy,” Tanaka says, hand clenching into a fist over his heart.

Suga claps him on the shoulder manfully, grinning at the way his underclassman’s knees buckle. It is nice to be able to do that still, now that Tanaka has shot up a several more centimeters and the two of them are no longer the same height. “I’ll put the mops away,” Suga offers. He pries Tanaka’s mop out of his hands, letting out a quiet laugh when the buckled knees and lack of support mean that Tanaka literally collapses where he has been standing. Tanaka doesn’t seem to mind the change in position, chin balanced on the floor as he reaches a hand helplessly in Shimizu’s direction. Suga shakes his head and heads back towards the equipment storage, detouring towards ball collection so he can tap Ennoshita on the shoulder and point in Tanaka’s direction. Ennoshita rolls his eyes but immediately heads off to scrape his year-mate from the floor.

… if the angle of that encounter was correct, Ennoshita is now slightly taller than Suga too. Still, it’s not a bad thing for volleyball players to be growing taller. Better for the team that way. Which is exactly what Suga will continue to tell himself.

Suga gives the broken mop another challenging stare as he stores the working mops back in their place. That’s right. Taller, shorter, if they all mysteriously turn into mole people--no matter what the world throws at them, they definitely won’t lose this year. He points at the pieces of the mop, eyes narrowed.

“You understand?” he says, keeping his tone firm and steady even though he’s whispering, very conscious of how this would look if someone else walked in. “You won’t stop us, bad karma. We’re going to win this year, no matter what. So bring it on.”

The mop doesn’t answer, of course, but Suga still feels better as he lets himself out of the room. Daichi is waiting there for him, his normally placid expression a little distracted. Unusual. There’s a definite furrow lurking between his eyebrows as he leans back against the gym wall, staring at the floor as though it has personally wounded him. This is no good. They just had a solid if low-key practice. If Daichi is starting to lose hope now, for no real reason at all, the whole team will falter.

So, of course, Suga pokes him. Straight in the eyebrow-furrow. Ten points. “You’re going to get wrinkles young, Daichi,” he chides. “And then how will you get some poor woman to love you?”

“Ha-ha,” Daichi says even as the furrow re-etches itself. “Mind control will be my only option, I guess. Anyway, I want to get to class early. Mind if we change quickly and head straight there?”

“You don’t need my permission.” Suga grins, trailing Daichi as he immediately starts trotting towards the club room. “Ah, is Sawamura-kun nervous about the big scary third year? Does he need back-up to confront this new threat?”

“Just because you’re a few months older doesn’t actually make you more mature, Suga,” Daichi sniffs at him. He’s clearly still distracted, though, head tilting forward like he’s desperate to watch the movement of his own feet. Weird.

“Half a year older,” Suga corrects automatically, though he’s not operating at his full-banter levels either, too distracted by whatever is distracting Daichi. He changes into his school uniform on autopilot, offering quick see-you-laters and good-lucks to the newly minted second-years as they head out for their first day of class. Daichi seems to watch each of their teammates leave, but doesn’t say anything to any of them, even when Tanaka rushes out with his uniform buttons in the wrong holes, chirping something about making sure Shimizu gets to class safely. Weirder and weirder.

“You done?” is the first thing Daichi says, shouldering his bag and glancing in Suga’s direction before he looks solidly back at the floor.

“Mhm,” Suga hums, falling into step behind him as he does up the last button on his uniform jacket, eyes focused on the back of Daichi’s head.

Daichi seems content to travel to the school building in silence, though the second they step inside he glances around, seems to realize where they are, and then looks back at Suga with a weirdly frightened air. It’s like seeing a tree look scared, one of those ancient, incredibly solid oaks. Suga just wants to pat Daichi’s arm and say, “You’re a tree, what can you possibly be scared of?”

He has a feeling like perhaps Daichi would not appreciate this gesture. He manages to refrain.

“So, uh… you’re, uh, wearing your uniform jacket fully buttoned today? No unbuttoned collar?” Daichi asks.

Perhaps the world’s weirdest topic of conversation. What is throwing Daichi off? “I want to make a good impression on the first day,” Suga says, eyes sweeping the hallway for clues. Was it something about practice? Or is Daichi truly this nervous about their third year? The hallway provides Suga no answers, just a handful of other students who have also arrived early, either walking with their heads down as they sleepily make their way to class or clustered in small groups of two or three as they catch up after the week-long vacation. There’s several larger groups of girls clustered here and there. Some are whispering rather excitedly, but most are teary-eyed and sniffling. Suga smiles innocently at one group and they look terribly betrayed.

“Ah, makes sense.” Daichi nods, appearing not to notice anything at all. He’s back to staring at the ground. It’s a thoughtful-Daichi pose if Suga ever saw one, but what can he possibly be thinking so hard about? “Which class do you think we’ll have first?”

Whatever it is, it’s definitely not that. “Well, we’ll find out in a few minutes, won’t we…?” If all else fails, asking questions is generally a good strategy in the attempt to obtain answers. “Is everything alright, Daichi?” 

Daichi just laughs awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. “Uh, you caught me. Just, um, nervous about the year.”

Vague.

“You’ll be fine. You’re the Volleyball Club’s fearless leader, after all.” Suga tries to make eye contact, to show Daichi that he means it, but Daichi is still looking at the ground. Normally this would be fine, as he outgrew Suga over a year ago and, annoyingly, ground-direction for Daichi is also usually Suga-direction now, but Daichi seems to be purposefully avoiding eye contact. “Did Shimizu say something to worry you?”

“No,” Daichi says immediately. “Just… talking about her plan for recruitment.”

And that’s definitely a lie, because “stand still and hold up a sign” is as close to a plan as Shimizu ever has for recruitment. Anything else might require talking to strangers. And her strategy worked last year, anyway, so it shouldn’t be the thing making Daichi this worried.

Well, if Daichi isn’t going to talk, then Suga will let it rest until he can figure it out and fix it. Which clearly won’t be now. They’ve already reached the open classroom door. It’s still so early that there are only four other students there, all clustered around the front of the room as they catch up.

“Here we are,” Suga says patiently. Daichi still doesn’t seem any calmer. That tension ratchets up hugely when Suga turns to keep walking down the hallway, past the open door.

“Wait, where are you going?” Daichi calls after him. Suga glances back. Daichi appears frozen by the door, as if scared to even go in by himself. How silly. Are they back to being first years, now? Daichi gets along with their classmates even better than Suga does, it makes no sense for him to suddenly fear them like this.

“I’m going to splash some water on my face, I still feel a little sticky from practice,” Suga patiently tells him. “Is that alright with you, captain?” 

Before he finishes speaking, he’s already turning and heading towards the stairs past their classroom, the ones that lead into the main lobby. Even though he wants to help with whatever is troubling his friend, it’s certainly not helping at all to indulge him in his weird paranoia right now. He’ll just have to ease back into this new school year on his own.

The hallway is slowly becoming more crowded as it gets closer to the start of the school day, most students streaming in the opposite direction of Suga as they hurry to their classrooms. He waves as he notices Michimiya at the opposite end of an intersecting hallway, exchanges smiles with a few other students he knows as he passes them, bites his cheek and looks the other way when Asahi sees him and immediately tries to hide behind the nearest student, a girl so short she looks like an elementary schooler. The student body as a whole seems a little louder, a little more filled with laughter than usual, and Suga isn’t going to complain. It’s a brand new school year, and anything is possible. If only Daichi would stop dwelling, or whatever it is he is doing, he could maybe figure that out too.

“Suga, wait, not that way--” Daichi is calling behind him, having evidently broken from his weird trance in order to run after him, but Suga has already made it halfway down the stairs, turned the corner, and frozen.

The banner is huge, strung from above the concession stand all the way across the back of the lobby, obscuring the school-wide bulletin board. There would’ve been no way to miss it for any of the non-athletes coming in the main school door rather than through the entrance by the gymnasiums.

In bold, colorful calligraphy, the banner announces, “Now that we have brave men and women all across Japan being true to themselves, isn’t it time for KARASUNO’S OWN GAY STARS to be honest with us all?”

A list of names takes up the remaining space beneath the question, each character drawn big and clear.

And the very first name on the list reads “Sugawara Koushi.”


	2. Karasuno's Own Gay Stars

This is what it must feel like every time he smacks his teammates, Suga thinks through the buzzing in his ears. Some pain. A squeezing sensation, a little numbness. All of it centered around his lower chest but slowly radiating out. Filling all of him. There’s a faint heat at his back and he knows Daichi has caught up with him. In fact, he probably knows what Shimizu and Daichi were talking about and why Daichi had been acting so strangely after practice. Really, the banner is truly informative. Above and beyond the ways the author intended, even.

Suga takes a slow, deep breath, matching the sluggishness of his thoughts. It’s just anonymous harassment, right? There’s no way anyone will take it seriously. All the same, he scans the rest of the names on the list, making sure that he’s the only casualty from the volleyball team. It’s a short list, fewer than ten names from what Suga assumes are the rest of the student body, and reading it doesn’t take him very long. He’s distantly pleased when none of the other names are familiar. A very particular list, then.

“Well, I suppose this is what I get for laughing so hard, hm?” he manages to say to Daichi. Even to his own ears, it sounds as though his voice is coming from very far away, faint and breathless. He rests a hand on his stomach, wondering if someone really had hit him and he simply hadn’t noticed. “I suppose the whole situation isn’t quite as funny, now.” A shiver as a dark, ugly thought claws its way up his subconscious, emerging one terrible implication at a time. “Or… karma…?” He had practically dared the world to punish him, after all.

A huff of breath past his ear and the warmth at his back is gone as Daichi storms past him, skipping every other step as he pounds the rest of the way downstairs, pushing past the ragged semi-circle of students whispering in a cluster around the sign. He tears the banner from the wall in one quick movement, muscles in his shoulders flexing sharply at the sudden strain. Suga leans forward to watch as the paper flutters to the ground in defeat and Daichi quickly rolls it up, glaring around him. Every student whose eye he meets looks away quickly, the small group beginning to mumble and disperse.

Suga just blinks. “Daichi…?” he calls down. Huh, the railing is pressing into his chest in a way that will probably leave a mark. He probably should do something about that, but it feels like everything is happening in super-quick motion now, like the world is streaming by him faster than he can process it. It’s a very strange feeling, the exact opposite of what he usually feels during a volleyball game. “What…?”

Daichi doesn’t respond until he’s halfway up the stairs again, banner clutched to his chest. Even torn from the wall and tightly rolled, it’s nearly as large as Daichi himself. Daichi is carrying it like it weighs nothing at all. “Shimizu said she had already spoken to a teacher and they said they would take it down,” he says, voice almost a growl. He darts a look at Suga and continues, “I-we didn’t want you to have to see it. Shit, what’s wrong with the teachers? Shimizu should’ve just gone straight to Takeda-sensei, he would’ve done something…”

Suga blinks. “How long has it been up, do you think…?” It feels like both he and Daichi are speaking empty, meaningless words, talking around a question, a big question, a question gaping like an abyss on the stairs between them.

“Shimizu saw it when she came in, close to the end of practice,” Daichi says. He walks through the abyss between them and Suga thinks he’s about to walk straight past him, ignore it all, but he doesn’t. He stops next to Suga, clasps a hand on his shoulder, and offers him his widest, truest “I’m your team captain, and you can count on me” smile. It operates on a weird subconscious level, leading Suga to return it before he can even realize what he’s doing. “Most students won’t be here for a while yet,” Daichi continues. “I bet only a handful paid any attention at all.” That 100-kilowatt captain smile is still beaming at him.

That jerk, abusing his position to emotionally manipulate him… Suga couldn’t be more thankful. With that smile, it feels like the ground is more solid beneath his feet and time seems to return to normal all at once. He is once again aware of the other students around them, most on phones or with friends, clearly not paying attention to this tiny piece of drama in their midst. Only one or two are glancing at him, and those who do don’t bother looking a second time.

A deep breath. Just like Daichi told him last night. 

It was a stupid prank, after all. Only idiots would trust it. Definitely not the end of the world.

Daichi lets his hand drop but bumps their shoulders together in consolation. Suga looks over at Daichi’s face, only able to see it in profile as he stares at something up the stairs. “... Sorry. We thought we’d be able to get it down immediately, but… it won’t be a problem, okay? Anyway, I’m going to… I’ll just take care of this. I’ll see you in class.”

Suga feels his limbs thaw a little and quickly ducks back upstairs, not sure if he wants to ask Daichi to let him come with or tell him not to worry about it or…. or ask if Daichi thinks it’s true. Or ask if it changes anything.

It doesn’t matter what he wants to ask, though. Daichi is already halfway down the hallway, and the line of tension in his shoulders is more pronounced than ever. Suga stays quiet.

Karma, huh?

“You won’t stop us,” Suga thinks at the line of Daichi’s shoulders. “We’re going to win this year. No matter what.”

That’s all that matters.

Daichi turns back, offers him another quick, reassuring captain-smile, turns a corner, and then both he and the banner are gone.

Suga decides this is not the time for face-washing. He needs to see the extent of the damage for himself. He heads back down the hallway and into their classroom, thinking that this is what a captured soldier must feel like when he marches in to see a firing squad. Doomed but knowing it’s not worth fighting. Predestined. The fear is a ball sitting hard in the pit of his stomach, but his limbs are all moving smoothly, naturally. It’s like his whole body is fake, a walking lie.

There’s still only a few students in their classroom, and, as soon as he walks in, they’re waving him over to talk about vacation and school and the volleyball team’s chances.

Suga nearly holds his breath for it, but. But there’s nothing said about any kind of banner, at all.

Suga grins and laughs with them, perhaps a little wider and louder than he normally would, the ball of fear slowly melting down until it’s barely a pebble, the tension from the stairs bleeding from his joints. He leans against an empty desk, and decides that, if he has to take a lesson away from this situation, it’s just this: he is never going to laugh at his mother’s pain ever, ever again.

Well. Laugh as little as humanly possible, at least.

By the time afternoon practice rolls around, Suga has almost-nearly forgotten the stress of the morning, as much as he could. Thankfully, Daichi seems to have been right in that relatively few students actually saw the banner. While there’s the occasional rumor about some event from before the beginning of the school day, most students don’t seem clear on what that event was and even the ones who claim to have been there in-person usually can’t remember many, if any, of the specific names from the list.

On the other, far more pressing and distracting hand, there’s volleyball.

The two new first years are definitely a boisterous duo.

After Daichi locks the two of them out of the gym, he sets up spiking practice for the rest of the team. A bit aggressive, especially since they still don’t have any idea what their starting roster will be, but it fits their current needs well enough. Narita and Kinoshita all still lack the height--and the willpower, if Suga is being honest with himself--to be strong middle blockers, which is what the team needs most from them right now. Perhaps the spiking practice will give them a much-needed boost of confidence. Daichi isn’t half-bad at this coaching thing, Suga realizes, glancing over at him as he demonstrates to Narita how best to jump from the ball of his foot without relying on the heel. Suga makes a mental note to tell him, later.

As they practice, Suga makes sure to keep his eyes focused and mind clear. Volleyball is too important to deserve anything less than his full attention. 

Daichi takes his tosses the same as always--a solid, constant force, hand slamming into the ball the same way every time, like clockwork. Suga just has to make sure the ball arcs into that same spot--not too high or too close to the net--every time. Years of practice make it almost as easy as breathing, the muscle movements automatic. 

Tanaka, on the other hand, is a mess of crazy energy and random movements. Suga has to keep an eye on his waist each time he jumps, trying to estimate exactly how far in-half Tanaka’s going to fold himself in an attempt to put more force into his strikes and adjust the height of his toss accordingly. 

Ennoshita’s jump is textbook: soaring to the exact point he thinks he needs to be, no matter where he is actually most comfortable. While nice to see and easy to toss to, his strategy is robbing his jumps of height and his attacks of power. Suga makes a mental note to bring it up with Daichi at some point during the week. Ennoshita is the most likely to take Asahi’s spot, but the team doesn’t need a wing spiker who’s going to overthink every move he makes.

After all, that’s the setter’s job. Suga realizes during block-follow practice that he has been so focused on monitoring his teammates that he has missed the incredibly obvious way the first years are clustering around the window by the door. Even Tanaka seems aware of the two of them, from the way he keeps glancing over in that direction. Ah, right, Tanaka likes the two of them, had liked them even back when the three Karasuno representatives had gone to observe the Junior-Highs last year. It would make sense for him to want to pay them extra attention.

… Maybe Suga is giving him too much credit for thoughtfulness, though. There’s a soft voice by the door and Tanaka takes off immediately to greet Shimizu. So that’s what all that attention was for. Underclassmen are so cute, seriously.

Even cuter than Suga thought they were, it turns out. When practice ends, the 3-on-3 match with the first years scheduled for Saturday, Tanaka’s odd coughing and his far-too-polite request for the gymnasium keys couldn’t be more obvious if he had put a giant neon sign up on his shoulders, screaming, “I really like these two kids and am going to cheat so I can help them out (don’t hurt me, Daichi-san)!”

Well, helping out his adorable underclassmen will certainly be a distraction from everything else happening in Suga’s life. Setting his alarm for 3:30 in the morning will be painful but worth it.

It will also give him an excuse to head straight home after practice instead of going out for a post-practice snack with the team or, even worse, a study session at Daichi’s house. It’s been a very full day. That is probably the majority of the reason why Suga and Daichi haven’t been alone together at all. Nothing to do with any banners, definitely. Probably.

To Daichi’s credit, when Suga makes an offhanded remark that he’s planning on going straight home and resting up for tomorrow, all he does is smile at him and say, “See you tomorrow, then.”

Suga spends his train ride home clinging to the rail and staring at the ground, a hand over his mouth. Every time he remembers Daichi’s smile, his mind automatically jumps to the strain of Daichi’s arms as he tore down that banner. A small shiver trickles down his spine. He tries to stamp it out. It doesn’t matter if it’s nerves or gratitude or… or anything else. There’s no room in his life for anything but the things he’s already let in. School. Volleyball. His friends. His mother.

That’s all he needs.

When he returns to the apartment he and his mother share, he finds every single light on and instrumental music blasting from the kitchen at a volume too aggressive to be calming.

“Mom, I’m home,” he calls out, louder than usual so that he can be heard over the music. He shucks his shoes in the doorway and pulls on his house slippers. A quick glance around him informs him of four things in quick succession:

1\. All of the shoes are put away properly, even his mother’s legion of work shoes.  
2\. The entrance is shining as though someone mopped it relatively recently.  
3\. The hallway looks swept clean as well.  
4\. His mother has clearly entered the ‘do all the chores and deny deny deny’ stage of grief.

“Welcome home, Koushi!” his mother calls from the kitchen. She steps out into view, wiping off her hands on her apron, beaming at him. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun on the top of her head, her dark blue reading glasses barely balancing on the tip of her nose. Most alarmingly of all, there’s a long line of flour down her apron. She is trying a new recipe. This is no good. “Did you have a good day at school?”

“It was fine,” Suga says cautiously. Telling her about the banner is definitely out of the question, especially with her emotions a wildcard right now. Oh, but he needs to give her something... “I mean, I have a lot of homework to do.”

“It is your third year, after all,” his mother says. “I’m making us spicy fried chicken from a recipe I found online today. It should be good brain food!”

“Sounds delicious.” Suga steps into the hallway and bends to drop a light kiss on his mother’s cheek, almost choking on the dusty air he accidentally breathes in. His mother must have bathed in concealer. Ah, she didn’t want him to see her tear-streaks. Suga feels a jolt of guilt in his gut. And he spent all day worrying about himself… He’s a terrible son, really. “You didn’t need to cook. I know you weren’t feeling well. Just let me put my school things away and I can come finish it up for you.”

“No, no!” his mother says immediately, trying to push him towards his room. His mother’s on the taller side of average for a woman, but Suga still has well over ten centimeters on her and the push is not very effective. It momentarily reminds Suga that he is not as short as constantly being surrounded by volleyball players occasionally makes him feel and he grins as he stays stubbornly in place. “Go do your school work!” his mother scolds, giving up on pushing him, crossing her arms grumpily. Her sleeves are going to get flour all over them. “Your future is the most important thing. I can handle a simple dinner. Especially when I was lazy enough to take the day off. Don’t you worry, I’m fine now. You need to worry about school, not about me.” Her bottom lip trembles and Suga feels his heart melt.

Suga can’t help his fond smile. “There’s not that much homework,” he softly declares. There’s really not, especially since his plan is to work on it until it makes him pass out and therefore leaves him no time to think about the rest of the day. Waiting to start is for the best, really. “Seriously, we just started the year. I’ll drop off my bag and help.”

His mother gives in easily when he smiles at her, eyes sliding away as she mumbles, “Well, you always were better at understanding the directions than I am anyway.”

Which is also true, and yet another reason why Suga really should be the one to take care of the cooking.

His strategy works, for the most part. He throws himself into the spicy chicken, which actually turns out fairly good, and then into helping his mother find something to watch on television that won’t make her think about her betrayed heart, and then into doing his homework. There’s no room to slow down and think about his reaction to the events of the day.

Until he tries to sleep, of course. Then there’s no escaping the thoughts, no matter how tired he purposefully tried to make himself.

It’s not like they’re not thoughts he’s entertained before. Ever since the end of middle school, when the boys around him had started speaking more and more frequently about the girls in their class, he had known the whole process was of no interest to him. A deeper part of him, one he tries not to pay very much attention to most days, has always been aware that the very first appeal of volleyball had been seeing a team play, seeing muscles flex and strain, following them with his eyes until they disappeared under shirts and shorts...

He holds his breath like it will make the thoughts go away.

It isn’t anything like that anymore, after all. Not for a long time. Not since after he played the game himself for the first time, realized how much fun it could be, learned how he could use his constant observation of the world around him to his advantage as he gave the tosses his teammates needed the most. Volleyball makes him feel strong and talented, and the other players on the team are his precious friends and teammates, constantly supporting his back, running off to fight battles together.

Off limits. Especially for those kinds of thoughts.

Except…

He won’t think of any exceptions.

How could someone else have known, anyway? Suga doesn’t think he is particularly obvious. He spends so long thinking about his own behavior that it would be very surprising indeed if someone else had caught on to some clue he had missed. He doesn’t act anything at all like the gay characters that will sometimes pop up in his mother’s dramas, and definitely nothing like the gay celebrities he sometimes sees on variety shows.

But neither did that pop star, really, Suga realizes with a sick lurch in his stomach. Maybe there are different clues he should have been hiding, ones he never thought about enough to notice.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself as he plants his face in his pillow. None of it does. The banner was taken down. Even if other students know, what’s the worst that can happen?

… What is the worst that can happen…?

It’s like the heaviness leaves Suga’s limbs all at once, like a vacuum suddenly sucks out everything bothering him, leaving him light as air. Hasn’t… hasn’t the worst already happened? Someone making an accusation like that is awful. But practice today showed that Suga’s team still likes him, still needs him. Daichi’s still speaking to him, even if things are a tiny, little bit weird. They’ve overcome worse in the past. Suga’s friends are still the same as they always were, really. And Suga’s going to wake up at far-too-early in the morning tomorrow to make the Karasuno volleyball team as strong as it can possibly be.

The banner doesn’t matter, not really. Not like the rest does.

Not like volleyball. And school, of course. And taking care of the people around him.

So that’s what Suga will focus on.

He presses his face into the pillow, feeling his determination slowly fill him like it’s leaking in from his pores, taking up all the space his anxiety had been claiming. He falls asleep with a grin on his face.

The grin sticks with him for most of the next week. It turns out that Hinata and Kageyama are really, really adorable, even if Hinata has a scary amount of energy and Kageyama has the social grace of a feral bear. The other two first years make their first appearance as well, meaning that Karasuno has players to spare.

Extremely tall players to spare.

How did four adorable little underclassmen join, yet Suga is now the third-shortest member of the team?! Really?! He is a third-year! He is above the Japanese national average for height! Life is super, super not fair.

He already knows Daichi is going to bring it up, even before he actually does. They haven’t seen as much of each other over the course of the week, for no one reason in particular; Suga’s been arriving early to help Tanaka train Kageyama and Hinata and staying late to do the same, while Daichi has been mysteriously disappearing in-between the end of class and the beginning of practice, sometimes barely making it to the gym on time. Friday afternoon, however, the stars appear to align and the two of them are the last ones heading towards the club room, getting ready to go home at the same time.

“So,” Daichi says as they climb the stairs. The word is too casual, too amused, and Suga glances over at him even though he knows he’s looking at his own doom. Daichi is smug and smirking. “Even Kinoshita, now, huh…?”

Suga knows where this is going immediately, has been expecting it all week, but that doesn’t stop his face from immediately paling and his throat from issuing some sort of chicken-squawk that his brain had absolutely no say in.

“He and I are basically the same height,” he says, pleading, pretending the moment never happened.

Daichi just chuckles and shakes his head slowly, grinning straight to Suga’s face. What a terrible, terrible friend. “You realize how sad it is that your best defense is ‘basically the same height,’ right? You can’t even pretend you’re taller? Not even a little?”

Suga smacks Daichi in the arm, feeling a little bit better even as Daichi laughs at him. “Look who’s talking, hm?” he counters. “What’ve you got on me, two centimeters?”

“Two and a half,” Daichi corrects, the teasing sing-song clearly intended to be an imitation of Suga’s correction of “half a year” whenever Daichi talks about their age difference. Suga shoves at him. Daichi doesn’t even move, because he’s built more like a rock than a human. 

“Such a violent shrimp,” Daichi laughs, his only acknowledgment of the attack. He opens the door to the club room before pausing, looking back at Suga over his shoulder. “What’s your plan for tonight, anyway?”

They haven’t really had a chance to see each other all week. To tell the truth, Suga has missed it. A lot. Even while working himself to exhaustion in every other area of his life.

“Studying at your house, I assume?” he offers, trying to squash how desperately he wants it.

It was the right thing to say, judging by the way Daichi beams at him. “That’s convenient, since I told my mom you’d be over for dinner.” He ducks into the room, not even bothering to hold the door for Suga.

“You should ask me first, Daichi,” Suga scolds, hurrying to try to catch the door before it closes. “Your poor mother. What if I’d had other plans and said no? She would’ve prepared that food for... for nothing…”

Daichi has stopped a few steps into the room, staring at the bank of lockers. Despite his two-and-a-half centimeters, he’s not nearly tall enough to block Suga’s vision.

“Volleyball Team All Star Setter,” the words read, painted in a scrawl of white along the side of Suga’s leather bag. “The World Famous Homo-Homo-kun.”

A beat of world-ending silence.

“Well, this is new,” Suga manages to say, to break it.

He should’ve known, really, that it wasn’t going to just be over. He did know, he supposes, if he’s being honest with himself. He just didn’t want to think about it. He had been so focused on ignoring all of it in favor of the parts of life that he cared about, he didn’t even entertain the possibility that the two things could overlap.

That someone would even try to tarnish volleyball for him had never even occurred to him. Not in his nightmares’ nightmares.

He chances a look at Daichi and what he sees makes his heart stutter. Daichi’s lips are thin and pale as he stares at the words, a muscle jumping in his jaw. His eyes are slitted, intent. It’s hands-down the scariest face Suga has ever seen him make, by far. He reaches up slowly, gently touching Daichi’s elbow. He feels the skin twitch under his fingertips.

“It’s okay, Daichi,” he says quietly, drawing his hand away. Was the touch okay…? He hates that he’s afraid to know. “I was expecting more, and worse, really.” But not here, he wants to say. He had expected there to be something, some negative thing that he wasn’t going to let himself worry about, but he hadn’t expected it here.

“The rest of the team’s been gone for a while,” Daichi suddenly says. He is not looking down at Suga, still staring at the words. “But the door… It had to be someone…” He breaks off. Suga’s not sure if it’s because he’s actually done speaking or because his jaw muscle has tensed so much he is no longer capable of opening his mouth.

“It’s okay,” he repeats, a little desperate for Daichi to believe him, to listen. “Look, I don’t care. I’m sure it’ll wash out…”

“Don’t worry about it, Suga,” Daichi says immediately. He turns away from the words like it requires real force of will. The smile he gives Suga this time does not reach his eyes. “I’ll take care of it at home tonight.” He shrugs out of his volleyball jacket, tossing it over the bag carelessly, as if the fact that it will hide the words is merely a side benefit in his attempt to put his jacket somewhere else.

“But, the paint… your jacket… You don’t have to--” Suga tries to say, but he’s immediately interrupted by Daichi’s curt, “It’s fine.”

“Okay, then,” Suga says, quietly. They get ready to leave in silence, Suga trying to touch his bag as little as possible. It’s all very, very awkward. Suga steps out to the still-brisk late-spring air and watches Daichi lock the door--purposefully, as though daring someone else to intrude on the team’s territory. As they’re on their way down the stairs, the vandalized bag still covered in Daichi’s jacket, Suga tries a soft, “Are you sure you still want me to--?”

The look Daichi sends him is so angry the words die in Suga’s throat. “What?” he asks. Then his eyes clear and he blinks, shaking his head as though just now remembering where he is. Suga lets out a breath. The anger wasn’t meant for him, then. “Suga, you can’t think for a second… Of course you’re still coming over. Right?”

“Right,” Suga agrees easily. Well, Daichi is clearly unhappy. And distracted. Suga will just have to be in charge of the social niceties for the time being. “... Did you notice Ennoshita today? He’s been holding back on his spiking, you know.”

Daichi makes a face and groans, but it’s a light-hearted sound and Suga lets out a tiny, tiny smile of victory to hear it. Point, Sugawara. “I’ve noticed,” Daichi says, mouth pulling into a thoughtful frown rather than an angry one. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to him all week.”

“Just stare at him really hard,” Suga says lightly, teasing, hating the note of uncertainty that he can’t quite shake. “Rely on the power of your captain-ly mind control, captain.”

“I wish.” Daichi shifts. It brushes their shoulders together. Intentionally or not, Suga’s smile widens, uncertainty easing. Everything is still okay. This is fine. He finally gets out his phone to send his mother a message about his plan to eat with the Sawamura family, confident now that it really will happen, that Daichi won’t just suddenly run. “Captain-ly mind control would fix a lot of my problems. Seriously, though, what should I say to him?”

Luckily, Daichi’s house isn’t too far from the school, and the conversation about Ennoshita’s spiking takes most of it. Suga carefully steers clear of any mention of the first years and whatever spiking potential they may or may not have, knowing that he’ll give away his involvement in their training for Saturday no matter what he says, probably. Daichi can be weirdly hyper-observant in certain, team-management-related situations. His mom messages him back a notification that she’ll just pick up fast food for dinner, then, which is reassuring. At least he doesn’t have to worry about the kitchen burning down in his absence.

“Mom? We’re home,” Daichi calls out as they enter his house. Suga is careful to take off his shoes delicately. While a clean entranceway in his own house is a sign that his mother has gone on a crazed but temporary mission of cleanliness, a clean entranceway in the Sawamura household is just its default state.

Daichi’s mother drifts down the stairs to greet them. She’s shorter even than Suga’s own mother, a pale and delicate flower of a woman, dwarfed entirely by her tan and towering husband and son. She is immaculately dressed in a kimono, even though she likely hasn’t left the house all day. When he had been younger, Suga had thought there was something ethereal about her, like a figure from a classic novel. She always somehow gives off the impression of a woman viewing the world from behind a curtain, leaning back on a cushion and watching life stream by without feeling very strongly about it either way.

Extended contact over time had caused him to revise his first, romantic impression. Obviously, he has realized, she is actually a robot.

“Welcome home, Daichi, Koushi,” she says serenely, her voice languorous and melodic as always, leaning in to take Suga’s scarf from him and hanging it nearby. “Did you two have a nice day at school?”

“Yes,” Daichi says easily, like he’s not creeped out by the fact that his mother is actually a machine pretending to be the perfect Japanese woman. The kind of woman who would never, ever have a nervous breakdown over her favorite idol being gay, for example. She probably doesn’t even know what “idols” are. “We’re planning on doing some homework after dinner.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Sawamura-san,” Suga says politely, clutching the strap on his bag a little tighter as her eyes drift over him, not seeming to register him at all and yet still taking in every detail of him at once. What was that line from The Tale of Genji, again? “Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams”?

Well, Daichi’s mom does keep the house rather dimly lit…

“C’mon, Suga,” Daichi says, leading the way upstairs, taking the stairs two at once because he can, show off. Their legs are basically the same length anyway, all of Daichi’s extra height is in his steel wall of a chest. “Mom, let us know when dinner’s ready?”

“Yes, of course,” she says.

Suga tries not to shiver, even as he can feel her eyes on him all the way up the stairs.

“Your mother,” he breathes out as soon as he makes it to Daichi’s room, shaking his head in terror that is only a little bit feigned. He grins at Daichi’s exasperated eye roll and gently sets his bag, still covered in Daichi’s jacket, by the door. He’s always liked Daichi’s room. It’s an actual bedroom, first of all, nothing at all like the converted closet that Suga has at home. Second, and most important, it’s basically a museum dedicated to his and Daichi’s friendship. The desk is messy with textbooks and old notecards from classes they share. The shelves are stocked top to bottom in advanced volleyball strategy books from when they tried to teach the sport to themselves during their first year at Karasuno, before Coach Ukai returned. Even the floor is not immune--Suga immediately spots one of his undershirts crumpled in the corner, half-hidden by the rug and one of Daichi’s socks. Suga must have accidentally left the shirt at Daichi’s the last time he missed the last train and stayed overnight.

And--Suga’s favorite part--the blanket proudly draped across the bed is the prank gift Suga got Daichi for his birthday last year. It’s covered in images of obnoxiously bright yellow volleyballs.

Suga kicks off the guest house slippers and settles down on top of the blanket, cross-legged, wiggling his toes in his socks. His movement makes the volleyballs ripple.

“You live with a robot,” he announces solemnly, and is very proud when he manages to stay upright even after Daichi shoves at him.

“You’re seriously so weird, Suga,” Daichi tells him, and sits down at his desk, bag dropped carelessly next to his chair, on top of a pile of discarded clothes. Is Daichi even sure his mother is his mother? He somehow inherited exactly zero of her robot tendencies. “So…”

“So?” Now that they’re here, in Daichi’s room, Suga is starting to feel a little adrift, like he’s in danger of floating off with nothing but the volleyball blanket for company. It feels like trying to fill the air with inane chatter about the team would be insulting. Something about class, then? But Daichi had said he wanted to do homework after dinner. This is before-dinner time. Suga keeps staring at his toes, at the ridiculous yellow volleyballs. Maybe one of them will inspire him…?

It’s especially hard when he knows what they should be talking about. What he wants to talk about, really, if he’s being honest. But he doesn’t know how to start.

Luckily, Daichi has always been braver than him. And also willing to take the lead, even when he, too, was afraid.

“You don’t have to talk about it at all if you don’t want,” Daichi says. His voice is even, calm, because of course it would be. “I don’t care either way. But you can’t possibly do anything or say anything that would make me dislike you, Suga. You’re a great person, and my best friend.”

So that was a kind of crazy emotional thing to pull out in a moment when Suga was feeling all lost and shaky and adrift. Suga can’t help his wide eyes or his grin, pulling up his knees to hide his face in them. He still feels shivery, still floating, but now he has a tether to pull him back to ground.

“What a girly thing to say,” he says out loud. Daichi reaches over to shove him again and he laughs, allowing the hit to rock him ever so slightly this time. “... Thanks, Daichi.”

“I am literally willing to hit you at any time,” Daichi offers solemnly and Suga risks a look at him, at his stupid earnest kind adorably square face. He doesn’t know what he ever did in this or any other life to deserve Daichi as a friend, but it makes any other kind of karma he gets totally worth it, no matter what. Which is perhaps a stupid thing to think, when karma’s been so nasty to him recently, but he doesn’t care. Daichi’s worth all of it and worse.

“So, do you want to talk?” Daichi asks, smiling at him, perfect and carefree. “Because, you know, if you can’t think of anything else to talk about, I hear that there was this really big thing that happened in the entertainment world this past weekend…”

Suga squawks and lashes out with one of his socked feet, nailing Daichi in the shoulder. “Shush, you,” he scolds. “This is a no-talking-about-it zone. Actually, everywhere is a no-talking-about-it zone.”

“Give me something else to talk about then,” Daichi says, leaning towards him, hands planted on his knees, solid and steadfast as always.

“I don’t know how they knew,” is the first thing Suga says and he immediately feels all of the heat and blood in his entire body rush up into his cheeks, to the point that he feels weak and woozy, like he’s about to pass out on top of all the ridiculous volleyballs. “I… I mean… I know, I guess. I’ve known for a while. Since the end of middle school. But I hadn’t ever really done anything about it. Because it’s not all that important, right?” He looks at Daichi because he doesn’t think he can’t. He’s not sure what he expects, but there’s a dull thudding in his chest when what he gets is Daichi’s full attention, the face he wears when he’s studying particularly hard for a test, jaw set and eyes focused. “I mean, does it really matter?”

He had planned to go through life the same as always anyway. He would find a woman willing to marry him one day, probably. They would go through with the marriage enough for him to have a kid of his own, at least. And then… That was where these plans always stopped, for him. Was he going to act like his own dad, then? Divorce the poor woman as soon as he had raised the kid a little, off to live a different life, somewhere far away? Or would he stay in a marriage without passion? There were worse things. It would probably be worth it, for a child.

He is startled out of his thoughts by a stab of pain in the center of his forehead. “Ow, what?!”

Daichi pulls back the finger he had flicked him with, tsking. Suga pouts at him. “Don’t cluck your tongue at me, Daichi,” he chides. “It’s not fair. I’m baring my heart here.”

“You’re being an idiot,” Daichi informs him. He doesn’t move when Suga kicks him again. “No, seriously, of course it matters. It’s part of who you are. You shouldn’t just go along with what society wants for you if it’s not what you want, Suga.”

Suga raises an eyebrow at him. “Daichi, you live in the stereotypical Japanese nuclear family. You are the precious heir to your neighborhood’s beloved line of doctors, going back generations, and your mother stays home all day wearing kimono and arranging flowers in meaningful ways. How can you possibly think--?”

“I think I’m going to go into sports medicine,” Daichi says and that’s so crazy Suga sputters to a halt mid-sentence and gapes, mouth wide open.

Daichi seems pleased by the reaction, if a little red in the cheeks as well. “See? I know what I’m talking about.”

“What an act of rebellion,” Suga manages, sarcasm gentle because when did this happen and why did Daichi never tell him? “You’re going into a different field of medicine than your family before you, how earth-shattering.” Except it is. The Sawamura’s are the most stereotypically traditional Japanese family Suga has ever encountered in his entire life and Daichi choosing to go into a different field than his preordained track is huge.

“Have you told them yet…?” Suga says after a moment of processing, a moment where Daichi just keeps looking at him, cheeks still flushed, obviously proud of himself. The question seems to take a little bit of the air out of Daichi’s sails and he deflates, leaning back.

“Ah… not as such, no. Not yet, anyway.”

There’s a moment of silence as Daichi stares at the ceiling and Suga stares at Daichi.

“Well!” Suga finally manages to get out. “I suppose we’re both aberrant tradition-destroying monsters, then.”

Daichi looks back down, grinning at him. “See? That’s how I know we can do it. Because we’re going to do it together.”

“Do what?” Suga asks, not able to not grin back.

“All of it,” Daichi says, confident, like there’s not a single shred of doubt in the world. “Win Nationals. Grow up to live the lives that we want. Anything. Because, if we’re doing it together, I don’t think anything can stop us from reaching our goals.”

It’s the kind of stupid feel-good super inspirational nonsense that makes Daichi such a great captain. Suga can’t help but feel it fill him up from his toes all the way to the tips of his hair. “You’re right,” he says, quietly. If Daichi is going to be there, helping him, supporting him, no matter what…? Well, maybe there really are other paths Suga’s future can take.

“Of course I am,” Daichi responds, that smug jerk. Suga kicks him again for good measure. Daichi ducks it, laughing, and then says, “Okay, on to other important questions… we can safely consider you an expert now, right? So who’s the most attractive guy in our grade?” Daichi waggles his eyebrows but his eyes are his dead-inside-angry-eyes because he clearly has no idea what seductive eyes are supposed to look like and that’s his best guess and he is quite simply the most ridiculous human being in the entire world, trying to make everything okay again just by the sheer power of his ridiculousness and, seriously, Suga doesn’t know what he did to deserve the world’s greatest friend.

Suga can’t help turning red at the question but immediately answers, “Azumane Asahi, definitely.” He casts his voice as star struck as possible, clasping his hands underneath his chin for his counterattack. Ha. Daichi makes this way too easy. “He just looks so mature.”

Daichi gags and shoves him. “Ugh, no, get out.”

“And have you seen his hair?” Suga continues. Daichi springs from the chair, tackling Suga back against the bed, attempting to physically force him onto the floor. Suga is laughing so hard he almost can’t get the words out, but refuses to let that stop him. “Oh… oh my, what a cool man, that Asahi-sama…”

“No, that’s against the rules,” Daichi is saying. “The rules of the Sawamura household say you must get out right now.”

“And that beard!” Suga coos, cackling maniacally when Daichi’s eyes go wider and much more honestly dead inside. He’s punished when Daichi tries to kick him in the shins and they both fall, flailing, to the ground.

Later, when Daichi’s dad asks them where the bruises on their arms came from, they both unanimously claim receiving practice. Somehow, saying “we tried to shove the other one out Daichi’s door first and it didn’t work” doesn’t sound nearly as cool.

“So,” Daichi follows up with, drawling across the dinner table, smiling like an innocent little angel. Lies on lies. “Mom, dad did you hear about that idol last weekend…?”

Suga kicks Daichi underneath the table hard enough for him to jump.

“Don’t disturb the table,” says his mother, the robot.

When Suga takes the train home that night, it’s with the knowledge that, even with anonymous harassment following him to practice, even with a first-year setter who’s far better than he is, even with a mother still slowly going through the five stages of grief over a pop star so crafted he is practically a fictional person... he’s going to be okay. Well, and possibly in jail for Daichi’s murder (except not, because no one would ever blame him and also he’s probably sneaky enough not to get caught, especially because he’s seen more than his fair share of police dramas).

But still.

He’ll be okay.


	3. Tension

“I think you need to tell the team,” is the first thing Daichi says when they get back to the clubroom the Friday before Golden Week to find Suga’s school uniform laying out on the ground, damp and smelling vaguely like ammonia.

“Tell them what?” Asahi asks, glancing over nervously before averting his eyes as though he is breaking some rule just by looking around his own club room. All three of them had stayed back after practice to talk with Takeda-sensei and their new coach about the plans for the Golden Week training camp, making sure all necessary paperwork had been properly filled out and filed away. Asahi had been jumpy the whole time, as if expecting someone to kick him out at any moment.

“Are you or are you not ‘team’?” Daichi snorts at him now. “It’s ‘tell us,’ Asahi.” He punches Asahi in the shoulder and Asahi winces like the big delicate baby he is.

“If I’m team, you’d think you’d hit me less hard,” Asahi complains and Suga laughs, despite the state of his uniform. It’s nice to have the three of them back together again, no matter what. He’s willing to take the nice things where he can get them, by this point.

Maybe that’s why it’s relatively easy to say, “I’m gay, Asahi,” as he maneuvers the uniform into an empty pocket of his bag with a few pencils he had gotten out for this purpose, trying to touch the desecrated clothing as little as possible. It’s a good thing he was planning to wear his volleyball clothes home anyway.

“Oh,” Asahi says, not even emotionally astute enough to at least sound a little surprised. “Right, that banner from the first day of school.”

“Someone’s been targeting him because of it,” Daichi says, voice hard. Suga doesn’t make eye contact, not wanting to see the expression on Daichi’s face, that hard anger that Suga can’t soothe. 

It would be the same face Daichi made when he saw the first few notes left on Suga’s desk, the notes addressed to “the disgusting volleyball homo,” before Suga started hiding them to avoid Daichi knowing. It would be the same face he made when Suga came back from a quick lunchtime practice to find someone had scribbled in permanent marker all over his math workbook. 

Suga hates that face. It makes him feel helpless, like the silly scraps of bullying actually mean something instead of being what Suga is worried about least about this whole situation. 

“This is the second time he’s done something in the club room,” Daichi continues. “We all need to be more vigilant. Which means the team needs to know, Suga.”

“You’re probably right,” Suga admits. They’re going to training camp on Wednesday, and he doesn’t want rumors about him to be all the team has heard. If one or more of them are going to be uncomfortable sleeping in the same room with him… Well, it’s better to know sooner rather than later. That way he can make plans...

He’s interrupted in his thoughts by Daichi slapping his back hard enough to send him stumbling. He glances up to see Daichi frowning at him and Asahi smiling in rueful fellow-feeling from across the room.

“Stop worrying about it,” Daichi chastises. “No one is going to hold anything against you, Suga.”

“Everyone likes you,” Asahi adds, voice a gentle counterpoint to Daichi’s strong confidence. “And besides, it’s a different time. Things like… things like that are more okay, these days. Didn’t you hear, they’ve offered a whole new show to--”

He folds in half as both Daichi and Suga karate chop him in the stomach at the same time.

“We know,” Daichi says sternly.

“It’s yet another show I have to screen from my mother’s eyes,” Suga complains.

“Oh, right,” Asahi says weakly, still bent over. “Sorry, Suga.” 

Suga offers him a small smile, hand moving up to ruffle that ridiculous gangster-like hair. “It’s fine. Thanks, Asahi. For being understanding.”

“Of course,” Asahi looks up through the curtain of hair that has fallen from his bun at Suga’s abuse, smiling a little. The smile fades as he straightens and asks, “So, speaking of… I mean, that thing we’re not speaking of… I mean…” He takes a slow, deep breath, ignoring Daichi’s dry comment of “fight on, Asahi.” “Well… have you told your mother yet? About you, I mean, not about… um, the other thing. Which I assume she knows already.”

Suga looks down at his bag, moves to finish fastening it. “... No,” he admits. 

“She’s having a delicate time,” Daichi continues for him. “What with the… you know. Other thing.”

“Ah,” Asahi sighs, giving Suga a pitying look that he doesn’t really need.

Suga shrugs, pulling his bag over his shoulders. “It’s fine. It’s not like she needs to know yet, right?” He looks over at Daichi, who has just finished packing as well. “Are you still coming over to study tonight, Daichi?”

“Of course,” Daichi says. “We have a lot to cover this weekend if we’re going to be at camp most of next week.”

Suga darts a glance over at Asahi, who is once again looking left out and awkward. “You’re invited too, Asahi,” he says. “Always.”

“No, no,” Asahi says immediately, waving his hands in front of him like he needs all the assistance he can get in turning down the offer, like he’s worried Suga and Daichi will press the issue. “I’d just hold you two back. I don’t even really have that much homework right now, anyway.”

“The benefits of not being on the college track,” Suga sighs, grinning at Daichi as Asahi turns pink and squirms a little, glancing from Suga to Daichi, clearly not sure how to answer him. “Well, we’re going to head out, then, or we’ll miss the train. And… thank you again, Asahi.”

Asahi, however, has become more calculating in his glances, which is a weird look on him. He finally focuses in on Suga again just as Suga finishes speaking. “Suga,” he says, voice slow and measured. “I thought I noticed this earlier, but… is Kinoshita taller than you now, too?”

Suga squawks and kicks him out the door, ignoring his half-laughing apologies. Daichi, laughing at both of them, locks up the club room behind them. Really, it is seriously good to have the three of them back together again, even if the other two are awful and Suga needs new friends.

After the train ride, Suga makes Daichi stop with him at the corner store so they can pick up three pre-made dinners, not feeling like cooking when there’s still so much homework to be done. They then trek to Suga’s apartment complex, Daichi spending most of the time telling a lengthy story he had heard from Michimiya about some first-year student with terrible handwriting who had joined the calligraphy club. Suga laughs when appropriate and shakes his head where he needs to, but all he really hears in his head is Asahi asking, “Have you told your mother yet?”

It’s a terrible idea. But if he’s truly deciding to discard his old plans to live a “normal” life despite his predilections, if he’s planning to actually follow through on what he wants, doesn’t she deserve to know? Shouldn’t she get a say, being the one who raised him? If she is truly going to be upset about it, then maybe he should reconsider, right?

The clamor of the thoughts in his head means that he almost doesn’t realize it when Daichi and he reach the apartment. Luckily, Daichi abruptly stopping at the door pulls Suga out of it enough so that he can realize where they are and respond accordingly.

“Alright,” Daichi says as Suga fishes for his keys. “That was a very funny story and you clearly didn’t pay attention at all.”

“Calligraphy club,” Suga repeats immediately, unlocking the door. “Michimiya.”

Daichi tsks and pushes Suga through the open doorway ahead of him. “Yes, those are two of the things that I mentioned in that entire story.” He reaches over to turn the lights on with the ease of a man who has spent many, many study sessions at Suga’s apartment. “Suga-mama isn’t home yet?”

“She messaged me earlier to say that it’s going to be a late night in the office.”

Daichi is still looking around, noticing the gleaming floors and polished picture frames on the wall. “... It’s like a very, very clean whirlwind came through here.”

“A whirlwind named ‘denial,’” Suga tells him, offering him the guest slippers. “And ‘hopeless crush becoming even more hopeless.’”

“Poor Suga-mama,” Daichi sighs, taking the slippers as he shakes his head in pity. “She had such a hard blow.”

“Do you think Asahi’s right?” Suga asks, because it’s almost bursting from his chest in its desire to be said. “Should I tell her?” He immediately turns to head to the living room, as though that will convince Daichi that the question isn’t that important. As though Daichi doesn’t know him better than that.

Daichi is quiet for a minute, thoughtful as he follows him, clearly taking the question seriously despite Suga’s facade. 

“I’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite in the world if I said yes,” is what Daichi finally decides to say, settling down on the couch, dropping his school bag on the floor and the bag of food on the table. “Since I’m still panicking at the thought of telling my parents about my career goals.”

It’s about what Suga expected him to say, but it’s not particularly helpful in this situation.

“Not what I asked,” he points out, taking his own school bag to the tiny laundry room so that he can dump the uniform in the washing machine, making a face and immediately going to wash his hands once he’s done.

“Eventually? You should probably tell her,” Daichi says from the living room, voice still even and serious. “That doesn’t mean right now, though. It’s not currently an issue, right? You’re not heading off to skeevy love hotels with anyone, after all.” Suga pinks at the thought of it, scrubbing his hands even harder. There’s a silence from the other room, until Daichi asks, “Are you?”

“Of course not!” Suga squawks, reemerging into the living room and throwing his towel at Daichi’s face. What a stupid question. Love hotels… Daichi’s such a jerk. Suga might not be able to stop blushing ever again. “When would I have the time, anyway? And who would I even go with?”

Daichi pinches the towel and lifts it a little way off his face, revealing a very serious face. Overly serious, even. “You know what they say, Suga. There is a mended lid for a cracked p--”

Suga reaches back into the kitchen and grabs a second towel, tossing this one on top of the first. Daichi splutters into laughter, not even bothering to save his head from the towel pile.

“You’re the worst, Daichi,” Suga informs him, finally settling down on the couch next to him. “Calling me a cracked pot. Quiz me on English and I probably will forgive you.”

Daichi carelessly drops the two towels onto the table, grinning at him. The grin slowly settles into something more serious, honestly serious this time, and he says, “I will if you promise me you’ll tell the team. They won’t care, Suga, and we need more eyes out if we’re going to catch the person doing this.”

“They might care,” Suga says, meeting Daichi’s eyes even though he really wants to look away. They’re both sitting in their normal studying positions: cross-legged on the couch, turned to face each other, knees not close enough to be brushing but close enough that Suga can feel Daichi’s body heat. It probably isn’t helping with Suga’s sudden whole-body overheating feeling. “You don’t actually know that they won’t, Daichi.”

“I do,” Daichi says, because he’s stubborn and annoying and, really, it’s like talking to a very confident wall. Why does Suga bother? “Suga… you trust the whole team to have your back during a game, right?”

“Of course I do,” Suga says, because it’s clear Daichi is waiting for an answer before he’s going to proceed. 

Daichi grins at him like he’s just led Suga into a trap, which is just silly. “Why would this be any different? Can’t you trust the team to have your back?”

Suga flicks Daichi’s knee, because it’s there and Daichi deserves it. His finger hurts after he does so because, as Suga already knows, Daichi is basically a wall in vaguely-human form. “You know it’s different. It won’t be that easy, Daichi. But I will tell them, I promise. I wouldn’t feel right if I went to training camp without telling them.”

Daichi rolls his eyes. “Well, if that’s all I can get, I’ll take it.” He pulls his English notebook out of his bag. “I’m guessing we’re using my workbook until you feel comfortable touching your bag again?”

Suga makes a face at the reminder. “Yes, thank you.”

His mother comes home to find them in the same position, the remains of their dinner spread out on the table around them.

“Koushi, Dai-chan,” she scolds as she puts away her work shoes. “You two are too young for all of this hard labor!”

Daichi immediately brightens at her voice, straightening and turning towards the entranceway. “Suga-mama!” he calls out, beaming at her with that ridiculously bright smile he can whip out on occasion. Like when he’s encouraging the team or, because he’s the weirdest friend Suga’s ever had, when he sees Suga’s mom. “Welcome home!” He jumps up to help take her work bag for her.

Suga will never, ever understand Daichi’s weirdly cutesy relationship with his mother. He once asked, only for Daichi to solemnly say, “She’s like the little sister I never had.” Which is even weirder, Suga thinks, so he hasn’t bothered trying to talk about it again.

“Welcome home,” he parrots before following Daichi, slipping from the couch and stretching his legs before he brings his mother her dinner with a kiss to her cheek.

“Aw, Dai-chan, you don’t need to worry about me!” she’s busy giggling. Suga engages in an epic struggle not to roll his eyes. Daichi grins at him over the top of his mother’s head. “You’re too kind, really! Thank you, Koushi. What are you two studying, hm?”

“We just finished our English work and started Japanese Lit,” Daichi reports proudly. Suga promptly loses the epic eye-roll struggle, which only makes Daichi grin more widely, that menace. His mom only like Daichi so much because she doesn’t know what a terrible person he actually is. 

“My, my, you two are just so brilliant!” The poor deceived woman pinches Daichi’s cheeks and then turns and reaches up to pat Suga’s head, because evidently that’s all the attention he’s worthy of when ‘Dai-chan’ is in the apartment. “I don’t know how I raised such a brilliant son, but I’m so very proud!”

Suga feels his head heating up under his mother’s hand. “Mom!” he protests. “It’s just normal high school work.” Daichi’s grin has gotten even wider, if possible, as he mouths ‘brilliant’ at Suga and flutters his eyelids. It looks like he’s twitching. Suga wishes his mom wasn’t in the way, because Daichi is just asking to be kicked in the shins.

“Going on to college,” his mom sniffs. “I know everyone expected it from you, Dai-chan, because you’re so smart, but I never thought my little Koushi…”

“Mom!” Suga protests. 

‘My little Koushi,’ Daichi is pretending to croon now, taking advantage of the fact that Suga’s mom has her back to him to clasp his hands under his chin and blink in a way he probably thinks is charming.

Meanwhile, Suga’s mom is just giggling at Suga’s protestations, which is the sort of thing she only ever does when Daichi’s around. “Alright, alright, I know, Koushi. I’ll eat my dinner and leave you two to your busy work being brilliant. Take care of him for me, Dai-chan!”

“I always do, Suga-mama!” Daichi pledges, smiling at her with stars in his eyes. At least he’s back to looking like his normal self instead of a parody of a romantic drama hero while he does it.

She disappears into the kitchen to grab a plate and Suga takes the opportunity to elbow Daichi in the side. “Weirdo,” he mutters.

“What can I say?” Daichi quietly teases back at him. “I’m just so happy your mother isn’t a robot that I can’t help myself.”

Suga pushes his shoulder, which leads Daichi to try to trip him when he turns back to the living room, and soon enough the two are trying to shove each other back into the couch.

“Koushi?” his mother’s voice trails from the kitchen. “Why is the washing machine running?”

Suga freezes, hand on Daichi’s shoulder. His eyes quickly flick to meet his friend’s gaze, silently asking him what to say. Daichi shakes his head, bites his lip, but then calls out, “It’s my fault, Suga-mama. I spilled some Pocari Sweat on Suga’s uniform after practice today.”

“Thank you,” Suga mouths at him. Daichi just taps him on the knee and shrugs, a physical, “Don’t mention it.”

“Ah, I’m sorry you spilled your drink, Dai-chan! Did Koushi buy you a new one to compensate you for your lost?”

Suga pouts over at Daichi, who is grinning like he just won some sort of prize. “Mom!” Suga calls. “It wasn’t actually my fault, you know!”

“No, he didn’t,” Daichi calls at the same time, because he’s awful. “But I’m sure he’ll make it up to me later.”

“Traitor,” Suga hisses at him.

Daichi just grins angelically. Suga kicks him.

After one more minor scuffle, the rest of their study session is fairly quiet. An hour or so later, Daichi checks the time on his phone, makes a face, murmurs “late train,” and starts packing up. As though summoned by this, Suga’s mom steps back into the room from her bedroom, where she’d been working on her own. She yawns and stretches, eyes sweeping over the couch, the remains of their study session, before looking at Daichi.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night, Dai-chan? It’s no trouble at all to get out the futon, you know. Koushi could set it up for you, easily.”

“Thanks, Suga-mama, but I need to be at school early tomorrow to do some more paperwork for the training camp. I don’t want to have to drag Suga out early with me.”

Suga frowns. He’s feeling a little fuzzy after so much studying, but something about what Daichi is saying doesn’t quite ring true to him. No one had said anything about more paperwork at the end of the meeting that evening, had they…? He blinks up, trying to catch Daichi’s eyes, but Daichi is already looking away, heading towards the door.

“You should make Koushi do more of that sort of thing for you,” Suga’s mom is insisting, trailing Daichi to the door, accepting the guest slippers from him as he pulls them off. “He’s your vice-captain, after all.”

“What paperwork?” Suga manages to muster enough brain cells to ask. He’s still curled up on the couch, only a few meters from the door but suddenly feeling like he’s kilometers away.

“Oh, it’s nothing important.” Daichi is slipping his shoes on, already almost out the door. Not looking at Suga at all. “Sleep well tonight, Suga-mama, Suga.”

“You too,” Suga says automatically. “Goodnight, Daichi.”

“Night, Dai-chan,” his mother says, and then the door is swinging shut.

Suga stares at his mother, who seems just as confused as he is.

“You didn’t do anything to offend Dai-chan, did you…?” his mother asks, though it’s clear she doesn’t even believe it as she’s saying it, despite her clear favoritism in their friendship.

“We’ve had an… eventful week,” Suga offers in explanation. His mind is blank to anything else that it might be. Unless... 

No. Everything else has been just the same as always. Daichi has been pushing him to come clean, shown no sign of discomfort… That couldn’t be the reason.

“Hm,” is all his mother says in response. “I meant it when I said you two work too hard.” She walks over and leans in to kiss Suga’s forehead, gentle and sweet. Suga feels a sharp, angry stab of guilt pierce his chest at the thought of intentionally keeping secrets from her. Maybe she would be able to figure out if Daichi is avoiding him now… but no, he can’t tell her, not yet.

“I love you, Koushi,” she says, making the pain of the guilt that much sharper. “I worry, you know? You just do so much…”

Suga hugs her around the waist, hiding his face in her stomach to physically force back the words he wants to say. His mother lightly strokes his hair.

“But I’m also proud of you, Koushi, for all the things you do,” she says. “Now go to bed so you’re ready to play more volleyball tomorrow. Do your best, okay?”

“I will,” Suga mumbles into her stomach, hugging her a little more tightly before finally pulling away. “Goodnight, mom.”

No. He can’t tell her. Not yet, at least. Not until he has to, probably. He can’t disappoint the idea of him she’s built up in her head.

The team, though. Daichi’s right. They deserve to know. Before staying overnight with him at training camp, especially. Especially if… but no, Daichi had said it was just paperwork.

“Especially if Daichi, Daichi of all people, is already uncomfortable with him,” he tries very, very hard not to think.

He tells himself he’s waking up earlier than usual for Saturday practice to give himself enough time to mentally prepare for his announcement, not because of any sort of curiosity about what Daichi is actually up to. He knows he is lying to himself, but the lie gives him the confidence to actually go through with it, making it to the Karasuno gym nearly forty-five minutes before practice is scheduled to begin.

The club room is dark and locked when he gets there and Suga opens it up to find no one, not even Daichi. Suga puts his bag away, figuring that he’ll use this extra time to set up the gym for practice, since he’s here so early with nothing else to steal his attention.

He heads back down to the gymnasium, enjoying the quiet, damp chill and half-light that is sunrise at Karasuno. The whole world seems hushed and a little misty, as though he’s walking through some sort of magical dreamscape instead of the real-life school grounds. He tilts his head back as he walks, drawing a deep breath and closing his eyes for a moment to relish in it all. What would he want to happen at this moment, if this were a dream…? 

Not that it matters, since he’s not usually able to control his dreams, and it would probably just end with him being attacked by some weird monster made by his brain mashing together every horror film he’s ever seen. He quickly opens his eyes again, not relishing either the thought of monsters or of face-planting because he’s not looking where he’s going, and makes his way to the shoe cubbies outside the gym wall.

When he first reaches in for his shoes, he nearly nicks his fingers on something sharp and pulls his hand back quickly, momentarily struck by the crazy fear that a snake or something else fanged and venomous has lodged itself in his shoes. Brushing off the irrationality, frowning to himself, he grasps his shoes from the side this time as he attempts to pull them out once again.

They’re heavier than he expects and immediately tumble from his fingers, splashing silvery thumbtacks all over the ground around his feet.

He’s gotten used to the cruel notes and pranks, whether or not Daichi thinks he should. This, though. This is something new. It could’ve hurt his fingers. How is he supposed to toss for his team with hurt fingers? He scowls down at the thumbtacks, a black thread of anger slowly winding its way through his veins.

“You too, huh?”

Suga jumps nearly as high as Hinata when the unfamiliar voice calls out from the mist behind him. He whirls around, hand clutched to his heart, all anger forgotten in the shock of the moment.

The person standing behind him is a stranger, though something about the curve of his jaw and the wave of his hair strikes Suga as familiar. He appears to notice Suga’s struggle to place him and smiles ruefully, stretching out a hand towards him.

“Hattori Masato,” he says. “Class 3-1.”

“Sugawara Koushi. Call me Suga,” Suga says automatically, reaching out a hand. He tries not to yelp when Hattori grabs it and, instead of shaking it or something like Suga was expecting, pulls him out from the center of the thumbtacks. Suga stumbles a little and Hattori catches his shoulders, keeping him upright. He’s even more stunning up close, and Suga vaguely remembers several girls in his class whispering about “beautiful, beautiful Hattori-san on the soccer team.”

“They did that to me last week,” Hattori admits, letting go of Suga’s shoulders quickly. He smiles down at him--yet another person who’s taller than him, Suga realizes and struggles not to make a face at that realization. And not even a volleyball player this time. Life is unfair. “Let me guess. Your name was on the list too?”

“Yes,” Suga says, because he doesn’t see much point in denying it when this Hattori has seen him basically attacked with thumbtacks. Although… “‘Too’?”

Hattori shrugs, smiling in a soft, self-deprecating kind of way. It suits him. He has the sort of face that most things would suit, though. Sharp cheekbones, a defined jaw, hair swept in a gentle black wave across his forehead… He looks like he could be in one of Suga’s mom’s idol groups. No wonder their female classmates had been swooning over him for so long. “Yeah. I was on there. It’s been crazy since then. Paint on my belongings, mean notes, thumbtacks, all kinds of stuff.”

Ah. Evidently the female classmates could keep swooning to no avail.

“Me too,” Suga admits, offering the best smile he can manage at the moment, even though he knows it probably just looks tired. “It’s annoying when it gets in the way of practice.” He tilts his head towards the gym door, frowning briefly down at his shoes and the spread of tacks over the ground. He’s going to have to straighten all of this up before the rest of the team gets in.

“I know what you mean,” Hattori says. He gestures off to the soccer field and Suga nods in understanding. “My team’s being kind of asshole-ish about it, too. They’re hopeless without me, though, so they’re learning to stop talking about it.”

“Mm,” Suga says. A quick surge of fear strikes him, the thought that his team might react the exact same way, but he quickly quashes it. Daichi’s probably right. And Suga’s only heard mostly terrible things about the soccer club anyway, so it’s not like it’s a fair comparison. He tries to ignore the fact that most of those terrible things just come from Tanaka complaining that the soccer club has taken all the meat buns at Sakanoshita again. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Hattori seems to mull over his next words for a moment or two before offering, “It makes me think that… well, we should have a place, shouldn’t we? To talk about this kind of stuff?” His gaze is earnest. Something about it seems too innocent for the rest of his polished, carefully groomed face. Suga is not sure why his brain is being so judgmental towards this poor fellow victim and tries to make himself smile encouragingly. Appearing to take the expression on face value, Hattori continues, “I’ve been thinking about getting together a… well, I guess a club, I suppose. To talk about issues and stop bullying. Things like that.”

Suga nods, still trying to be encouraging. “That might be a good idea,” he says, even though he’s not sure about that at all. Wouldn’t that just draw a bigger target on everyone’s back? “Good luck with it.”

“You’d be invited to join,” Hattori says immediately. His cheeks are dusted with pink now, which is a better look for his face than the earnestness was. “If you wanted to, I mean.”

Suga smiles at the offer. It’s clearly intended to be kind and well-intentioned, even if Suga has zero interest in it. “Thank you, but I really don’t have the time for anything else besides volleyball. Speaking of, I should probably go set up for my own practice, Hattori-san.”

“Oh, call me Massun,” Hattori insists. “It’s what the team calls me. Look, it sucks that we’re both going through this. Why don’t we exchange contact information, at least, so that we can talk about it, if we ever need to?” He smiles at Suga, a wide, sweet smile that probably also contributes to the whole legions-of-fans situation. 

“Alright,” Suga agrees, smiling back at him. Disagreeing would be too rude, even if he can’t think of anything he particularly wants to talk with Hattori about. 

They exchange information and Hattori keeps smiling. “Why don’t I help you pick up those thumbtacks? My practice won’t start for a little while.”

“It’s fine,” says a new voice, this one thankfully as familiar as Suga’s own. Suga half-turns to catch Daichi’s eye. Daichi isn’t looking at him, though. He is staring at Hattori. He looks exhausted. “We’ve got it from here.”

“Are you sure…?” Hattori asks. Suga looks back at him to find that he’s staring at Suga instead of Daichi, as though making sure he’ll be okay. Nice, but not necessary.

“Again, thank you, Hattori-san,” Suga says.

“Massun,” Hattori corrects.

“Massun,” Suga allows. “Thank you. My captain is a problem solver, though, and I wouldn’t want to deny him the opportunity to feel useful this morning.”

Daichi snorts and finally steps in next to him, catching Suga’s eye, offering him a wan smile before he kneels to start picking up thumbtacks.

“Right, then,” Hattori says, and Suga looks back at him to catch him looking between Suga and Daichi curiously. His hair doesn’t really move and Suga briefly wonders how much gel is in it. The thought feels unkind, though, and Suga quickly pushes it from mind. Maybe he’s just tired as well; maybe that’s why he can’t seem to stop feeling so judgmental. “Well, if you insist. E-mail me if you need anything at all, Suga.”

“I always knew I hated the soccer team,” Daichi mutters as Suga kneels down next to him to help him start gathering the thumbtacks, Hattori having disappeared in the direction of the field. Daichi offers his bag for storage, for now, which Suga appreciates. His poor bag doesn’t need any more abuse.

“Hate is so strong, Daichi,” Suga says, nudging his shoulder, even though he appreciates that he isn’t the only one thrown off by ‘Massun.’ He drops a few thumbtacks into the offered bag. “This isn’t his fault. He saw that it happened and was just trying to help. His name was on the banner too.”

“Hm?” Daichi glances at him and Suga catches his breath when he sees that same angry look he’s been trying to avoid recently. It bleeds away quickly, though, as though Daichi is aware of how much he hates it. “Oh, right. I forgot about that. About his name being on there.” His brow slowly tenses again, the angry mask slowly creeping its way back across his face.

“You need to stop getting angry for me,” Suga says, quietly, looking down at the thumbtacks as his hand wanders through them. It’s much nicer to be out here with Daichi than it was to be here alone. Still, Suga would much rather it be a Daichi without his angry-face. “It’s not helping me, Daichi. I just want things to continue like usual.”

“I--” But Daichi bites off whatever he was intending to say, hands frozen in their hunt.

Suga’s never really thought about it before, but there’s something aesthetically pleasing about his hands next to Daichi’s. Suga’s fingers are longer, his hand more slender, pale, tapering, while Daichi’s hands are broad and strong, tan and sure. Something about the appeal of opposites and contrasts. Something like that.

“I know things can’t just continue to be the same forever,” Suga continues, voice still low. “I’m not that delusional. But it doesn’t mean everything has to change, either, Daichi.”

“Suga,” Daichi breathes out, and then appears to reconsider what he’s going to say, again. It’s strange for Daichi to be this uncertain. Suga doesn’t like it at all. He shoves Daichi’s shoulder with his own, trying to physically snap him out of it.

“You’re the captain, captain,” he says out loud. “Your faithful subjects will be sad if they think you’re upset.”

“Right,” Daichi says, and then he pretends to slap his cheeks Michimiya-style, only slowing at the last minute to lightly tap them instead. Suga can’t help his delighted laugh at the sight. Daichi grins at him, cheeks slowly reddening despite the softness of the tap. “What would I do without you, Suga?”

“Probably not be ruining your knees as you try to pick up hundreds of thumbtacks outside the gym,” Suga points out. It’s hard to feel guilty, though, when Suga would much rather Daichi be here with him than some member of the soccer club.

“It’s worth it,” Daichi declares, nudging their knees together, and that doesn’t help with Suga’s lack of guilt at all. “It might put a dent in my spiking career if I lose my knees, but you don’t really need knees for receives, right?”

“This coming from King ‘Use Your Legs In Your Receives!’” Suga laughs and nudges him back, meeting him grin for grin. There’s a bubbling occurring in his chest that he really has no interest in stopping. Things don’t have to change. Whatever it is that brought Daichi to school early, he’s choosing to be with Suga, here and now.

The bubbly feeling remains in Suga’s chest at they finish picking up the thumbtacks and set up practice just in time for their teammates to begin trickling in. Slowly, with each sleepily familiar face, the bubbling subsides. Suga spares a moment to be glad that Coach Ukai spends the mornings working and that Takeda-sensei doesn’t usually make it out to morning practices, glad that he doesn’t have to face a conversation with an adult yet.

That makes it ever so slightly easier when Daichi gathers the team together for post-practice announcements, meeting Suga’s eyes purposefully, and Suga is able to step forward without any other prodding and say, almost all in one breath, half-bowed in some mixture of apology and desire to not meet their eyes, “I know there are rumors, so I wanted to tell you all personally that I am gay. I don’t intend to have it come between any of us, but I would understand if this makes you uncomfortable going to camp with me and will make alternative plans if necessary. I am sorry I did not tell you sooner.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting. He is not really sure what response he is expecting. He hasn’t prepared himself for any one response in particular. Perhaps he should have. Perhaps that should have been his concern, rather than thumbtacks and soccer players and his mother and wherever Daichi was off to this morning.

Or maybe not, because the response he gets is one he likely never would have anticipated, which is for Nishinoya to immediately crow, “I understand entirely, Suga-san!”

Suga straightens up and blinks at Nishinoya in surprise. He’s not the only one. Nishinoya just poses for his audience, looking confident, chin in his hand like a wise old monk who doesn’t currently have ‘indomitable’ scribbled across his back in giant kanji. “Girls are cute, like fwooah, right? Like Kiyoko-san. But guys can be super cool too. Like Asahi-san.” Nishinoya nods, sagely, a man dispensing the greatest of wisdom. “I mean, I would totally kiss Asahi-san.”

There’s an earth-shattering silence.

It is eventually broken by Asahi’s weak, breathless, “W-w-w-what? N-Nishinoya! Wha...”

He trails off and there’s another earth-shattering silence.

This time, it’s broken by Suga snorting. He tries frantically to bite back his laughter but then he makes eye-contact with Daichi, who seems to be agonizing between wanting to defend Asahi’s honor and wanting to insult Nishinoya’s taste, and he can’t hold it back any longer.

He starts laughing hard, clutching his stomach as he folds over, and he’s not the only one by a long shot. Tsukishima is having a modest degree of success in biting back his laughter, snorting quietly behind a hand, but Yamaguchi is laughing hard enough for the both of them, and Ennoshita is chuckling softly while Narita and Kinoshita lean on each other and snicker. 

Tanaka is busy saying, “You surprise no one, Noya-san,” and Hinata is busy saying, “It doesn’t matter, does it? Noya-san is still Noya-san and Sugawara-san is still Sugawara-san!” and Nishinoya is busy saying, “Calm down, Asahi-san, I wouldn’t do it without your permission” and Suga really, truly, definitely has the best team in the entire world. 

Then Daichi manages to get out a strangled, “You think that bearded thug is the coolest guy on the team?!” and it’s clear which side has won his epic struggle and Suga is literally crying tears of laughter right now, oh god. 

No one wants Suga to sleep somewhere else. No one insults him or demands that he be taken off the team. His announcement--well, Nishinoya’s announcement, by the time it’s done--is just met with tension-relieving laughter and then Daichi yelling at them all to start cleaning up already, they’re going to be late for their classes, and...

The first years are fighting again because Hinata made some comment expressing his confusion over the whole situation and Tsukishima made fun of him, and...

Tanaka and Ennoshita are having an absolutely unsubtle discussion about how obvious and ridiculous Nishinoya is as they wheel away the cart, and...

Nishinoya is trailing Asahi, trying to convince him that no, it’s not weird, anyone would want to kiss him, seriously, how does Asahi not know how cool he is? while Asahi’s cheeks get redder and redder, ripening like a tomato, and...

And Daichi nudges his shoulder as he walks past him to pick up the block-follow practice board. And he had been right all along, of course, and Suga beams at him and Daichi smiles back, the honest, earnest smile that he always wears so well, and.

And.

And he has the best team in the world, really. And he won’t ruin it, no matter what. No matter how badly his stupid heart feels like it skips entirely out of beat when Daichi smiles at him like that.

Suga presses a hand to his aching stomach, still not able to wipe the grin from his face, and finally allows himself to look forward to training camp.


	4. Hypocrisy

The practice match with Nekoma winds up being the highlight of Golden Week training. Even though Karasuno doesn’t win a single set, they’re able to hold their own through three different games, and if that doesn’t show just how far they’ve come over the past month, nothing ever will. Daichi, Suga, and Asahi spend basically the entire train ride home grinning at each other, none of them caring much about how silly this makes them look in front of the underclassmen, who are mostly passed out anyway.

Plus, an unanticipated but amazing side-benefit to the practice match is that Suga meets Yaku Morisuke, the friend that he has spent his entire life missing, somehow without realizing it.

Also, his current lunchtime entertainment.

\--so, remember that terrible new underclassmen i mentioned before? if i murder him, will you come to tokyo to help me hide the body?--

Suga grins down at his phone. --no way.-- he types back. --i will make sure the proper authorities know so that our historical rivals are without a libero--

\--you’re almost as bad as he is.--  
\--trust me, that’s a huge huge insult--  
\--and also not true at all. no one on this planet is as bad as he is.--  
\--it is physically impossible for a normal human being to hold that much badness. it must be because he’s so tall--

Suga chuckles into his hand, leaning back in his chair. 

“Yaku-san, again?” Daichi asks, peering over Suga’s shoulder.

“Daichi!” Suga laughs, hand jerking in surprise. “You’re going to give me a heart attack, one day, you know!” Still, he holds the phone out and tilts it so that Daichi can see the most recent messages.

Daichi scans the messages quickly and frowns. “He’s not talking about Asahi, is he?”

Suga grins up at him. Of course that would be Daichi’s first assumption. “No. Some underclassman on the Nekoma team.”

“Good. Only we’re allowed to talk about Asahi like that.” Daichi thumps down heavily on Shizuka-chan’s chair, pulling his lunch box out of his bag and sliding it onto Suga’s desk to join Suga’s own lunch, freshly bought from the concession stand since Suga hadn’t had the time to prepare anything the night before. Suga puts his phone away. He can console Yaku later, perhaps with the story of how Hinata wound up trapped in the net during morning practice.

“So what did Michimiya want?” he asks Daichi, breaking apart the pair of disposable chopsticks that came with his meal and poking through the rice in the pre-made box to try to figure out which parts of his meal are vegetable and which parts are meat. He tries not to seem too interested in the answer to his question to Daichi, even though he’s been wondering ever since he bought his lunch and came back upstairs to find them talking in the hallway.

“Hm? Oh, just some information about the pep rally,” Daichi says. He carefully pulls the tomatoes out of his own lunchbox, dropping them on top of Suga’s rice.

“Picky, picky,” Suga tsks, but he eats the tomatoes anyway. The seasoning sauce Daichi’s mom uses is pretty spicy, but Suga doesn’t mind that. It does offer a convenient explanation for the dark mass churning in his stomach, though, the mass that pushes up out of his mouth, shaping into the words: “And here I was thinking maybe she’d mustered up the courage to tell you…” He looks down at his pathetic lunch, trails off. 

He’s better than this. At least the words came out more teasing than anything else. And Daichi is an idiot about this kind of stuff, anyway; he won’t realize there’s anything unusual.

There’s silence, of course, and he looks back up to see Daichi blinks at him in confusion, a piece of shrimp balanced on his chopsticks, halfway to his mouth. “Tell me what?”

Suga grins at him, swallowing on the off-chance that the action forces down the dark mass inside him. Daichi is so predictable. “Nothing, nothing! I almost forgot about the pep rally. Do you have your speech all ready?”

A shadow falls over their lunches before Daichi can reply. The two of them look up to see Hattori Masato standing there, looking awkward but pleasant. The girls who had stayed in the classroom for lunch almost universally look to be on the verge of fainting in his presence, glaring at Suga and Daichi as though wondering what makes them so special.

“Suga?” Hattori asks, and he might have seemed shy if not for his naturally confident, self-assured face. “I was wondering if I could eat lunch with you.”

“He’s busy,” Daichi says immediately. Suga looks over at him in surprise, wondering if he is trying to tell a joke, somehow, but Daichi’s jaw is set in a way that looks very serious. It’s entirely uncalled for.

“Rude, Daichi,” Suga scolds, softly. It’s Daichi’s turn to look surprised, but Suga turns and ignores him. He looks up at Hattori, and says, “Of course you can join Daichi and I if you’d like, Ha… Massun. This isn’t a private gathering.”

Hattori beams at him, pulling over Yoshida’s chair. “Thanks, Suga.” Nothing said to Daichi. Which is fair, Suga supposes, since Daichi seems to have pulled out his phone and is now typing away, jaw set, ignoring Hattori entirely. Weirder and weirder.

“Nothing new has happened, has it?” Suga asks, keeping his voice gentle, wondering if maybe that’s the reason why Hattori has sought him out today.

“Something…? Oh, no, nothing like that.” Hattori lays out his lunch. Like Suga’s, it’s been bought from the concession stand downstairs. “Things have just been a little awkward in my class recently, so I was seeking out reinforcements.”

Suga melts a little. He really did mean to try to talk to Hattori. He can’t imagine how tough of a time he would be having right now if he didn’t have his team to support him. Hattori deserves to have “back-up” just as much as Suga does.

The thought of his “back-up” makes him give Daichi a gentle kick under the table, grinning over at him. “Looks like you’re outnumbered, Daichi,” he says, gesturing to the lovingly packed Sawamura-style homemade lunch and the contrast it makes with the generically packaged school-bought options. Daichi just hums in acknowledgement, eyes still locked on his phone.

Well, Suga has tried, at least. He spends enough time trying to get the rest of the team to act like responsible human beings. Daichi is almost an adult, he can take care of himself.

Or he thinks so, at least. Until he hears Asahi’s unmistakable voice suddenly rumbling from the doorway, stumbling over a brief, “O-oh, um, I’m here for lunch, Daichi, Suga…?” He sounds a little out of breath, like he has literally run over from his classroom.

Ah. So that’s why Daichi had been messing around with his phone. He had been calling in reinforcements.

How are four different lunches supposed to fit on Suga’s desk?! 

Suga tries to give Daichi a dirty look, but Daichi is already moving, grinning and pulling over a chair for Asahi to sit in with a self-satisfied flourish.

“No, that’s fine,” Suga says, interrupting the action. He bundles up his lunch again, standing. “Ha… Massun, you don’t mind if we go eat outside, do you? That way Daichi and Asahi can eat together in peace. Since they want to eat together so badly today, evidently.” Daichi has the grace to look a little bit ashamed. Asahi might too, but it’s hard to tell, since his normal face and his ashamed face are so similar.

“Not at all,” Hattori says immediately, packaging up his lunch as well. “It’s a nice day out, anyway.”

“Suga--” Daichi starts to say, but Suga cuts him off with a, “It’s fine, Daichi. Massun and I should talk, anyway. Enjoy your lunch, you two.” He smiles at them to take the sting out of his words before following Hattori out the door.

“I didn’t mean to cause an argument between you and your friends,” Hattori says as they head down the stairs. 

“It’s fine,” Suga replies immediately. He tries and fails not to look over by the concession stand, where the banner had been hung. He’s looking forward to one day not having that automatic impulse. “You didn’t cause an argument. I eat lunch with them all the time, it’s nice to have some new scenery.” He tears his eyes away from the bulletin board in the back, smiling up at Hattori. “I haven’t eaten outside since… well, it’s a long story.”

“I’m all ears,” Hattori says, matching his smile.

So Suga tells him. About their oddball duo, about spending the first week of school sneaking around to help Hinata and Kageyama train at all hours, about trying to do it all without a coach or even really a teacher sponsor around.

“They sound fascinating,” Hattori says after Suga wraps up the story with the first appearance of the insane quick attack. “We don’t have anything like that on the soccer team. Geniuses, huh… Dealing with them must’ve been hard, especially with everything else you were going through then.”

Suga smiles. “If I’m being honest, I was thankful for the distraction. It was nice to have some other people to take care of.” During the course of the story they had found an empty bench outside and sat down, unpacking their lunches all over again. “How about you?” Suga asks Hattori, carefully balancing a mound of rice on his chopsticks. “How have you been handling it all?”

“Oh.” Hattori shrugs, leaning back on the bench and stretching out his legs. “It hasn’t been all that bad. After all, I’m sitting here with you because of it, aren’t I?” 

And the smile Hattori sends him now is definitely, definitely one that’s suited to his face.

It feels like a long shiver is making its way from the bottom of Suga’s stomach up to the top of his chest and lodging itself there. Is this… Is Hattori flirting with him?

He simply smiles, cautious, and responds, “I suppose that’s one attitude.” He picks up some more rice to give his hands and mouth something to do. This is the first time he’s been in this sort of situation, boy or girl. He isn’t enjoying it nearly as much as he had once thought he probably would. Mostly he just feels awkward and uncomfortable.

Hattori appears to take Suga’s response as some sort of cue. He doesn’t stop grinning, leaning forward this time, chopsticks walking idly through his lunchbox. “Have you given any more thought to helping me make that club I was talking about?”

Oh, right. Maybe Suga had misinterpreted his earlier comment. Maybe Hattori had meant all along that he was simply glad to have someone else who understands what he is going through. That seems far more likely. They don’t really even know each other, after all. Suga barely manages not to sigh in relief, shoving more food in his mouth to hide it.

“It won’t be possible, I’m sorry,” he says after he swallows, having bought the time necessary to get his voice into the realm of the honestly regretful. It seems like Hattori would appreciate the help, regardless of Suga’s own feelings about this club idea, but… “I want to help out, of course, but we’re just getting into tournament season for volleyball.”

Hattori shrugs again, shoulders rolling fluidly. “But the volleyball team hasn’t been very good for a while, right? The season should be over within a month or so, don’t you think?”

All the spots that had shivered earlier now just feel empty and cold, like his organs are in the process of slowly freezing solid inside of him. Or maybe the pre-made lunch is just sitting oddly on his stomach. Or maybe this is just another side effect of whatever sauce Daichi’s mother used on those tomatoes.

Suga thinks carefully about how he should respond, tapping his chopsticks against the side of his lunchbox, ignoring the cold feeling. “That’s what many other teams say about us, actually,” he begins, slowly, thoughtfully. “They’ve given us nicknames like ‘flightless crows’ and ‘fallen giants.’ But I have faith that this year… that this team is going to be the one that makes it all the way. To Nationals, I mean. The team that ends those nicknames forever. I have faith in them.” 

He smiles at Hattori, letting the cold spots inside of him fill up with the warmth he feels for his team. The warmth he feels when he catches sight of Nishinoya and Tanaka heading to the gym to practice during lunch. The warmth he feels when he finds Hinata and Kageyama racing each other around the school grounds. The warmth he feels when he and Daichi and Asahi pull off a perfect receive-toss-spike set. 

All the coldness is gone, just like that.

“You have a beautiful smile,” is what Hattori says in return to this proclamation of faith. “Has anyone ever told you that before?”

Suga feels his cheeks pinking, even as his smile slides away. “Ah, no, sorry.” He laughs awkwardly, putting down his chopsticks, ruffling the back of his hair. Why is he apologizing? Ah, this is so awkward. “I guess talking about my team just… brings it out of me, or something.”

Hattori reaches forward and touches Suga’s cheek with the tips of his fingers. His fingers are very cold. Or maybe Suga’s skin is just over-heating, what with the happy volleyball thoughts and the huge amount of blushing. Whichever it is, Suga doesn’t particularly like the feeling. He inches away, ever so slightly. 

“In fact,” Hattori says, his hand dropping down to his lap, “you’re very beautiful. Just in general.”

“That’s--” A really weird thing to say, Suga wants to finish, but maybe it isn’t? After all, can he really blame Hattori? In theory they’re both attracted to the same thing, so wouldn’t it make sense to pursue… something? Or is Hattori just being complimentary?

It’s hard to answer those questions when all he can keep thinking, over and over, is that he owes an apology to Daichi. It turns out that it is actually surprisingly difficult to tell when someone views you as a romantic target. Suga doesn’t think even Michimiya has ever told Daichi that he’s “beautiful in general.” Minus one point to Suga’s observational skills.

“Thank you,” he manages to say out loud. He coughs a little into his hand, buying enough time to regroup. “Ah, I should probably start getting back to class. I always try to get my notes in order before the lecture begins.”

“Did I frighten you?” Hattori asks, clearly bemused. “It was just making an observation, Suga. It doesn’t have to mean anything else.” He leans in, close, smiling into Suga’s face. “Not unless you want it to. A possibility I would be entirely open to.”

“Ah… thank you.” Suga is not quite sure how he’s still speaking. Hattori is right there, body heat so evident that Suga can feel it washing over him, burning him, despite the cold Suga had been feeling from him earlier. His eyelashes are particularly long at this distance. “Unfortunately, I…” What does he even say? He’s never been in this situation before. It would be so easy… but something in Suga’s gut is churning, rebelling, telling him to run. “Ah, that’s my phone,” he babbles, patting his pocket. It’s not. Why is he lying? It’s too late, he needs to run with it. “I’m sorry, we will need to finish our conversation at another time.”

He hurriedly packs up the remains of his lunch with one hand and stands. He slides his phone out with his free hand, pretending to be answering a call while he is actually dialing the first number on his recent contacts. Luckily, his call is picked up almost instantly.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he babbles into the phone, trying to offer Hattori an appeasing smile. Hattori is by now mostly looking entertained at Suga’s flailing, eyes locked on him. Please, Suga thinks prayerfully, please just play along.

“Ugh, this guy…” Yaku growls loudly from the other end of the phone. He sighs, loud and long and gusty. “If you’re not willing to help me hide a body, then you better help me transfer to Karasuno. I don’t want to step on any toes, and your libero is kind of scary intense, so I’m thinking I could be a middle blocker. What do you think? Would I have what it takes?” 

A brief pause. 

“... That wasn’t a joke about my height, by the way. I don’t make jokes about my height. It was supposed to be a joke about the height of Karasuno’s middle blo--it was totally an accidental height joke, wasn’t it? This is bad, I’m making height jokes at my own expense now. It’s all his fault. You have to save me, Suga-kun. Karasuno is my only hope.”

“Yes, yes, I’m sure we can help,” Suga says out loud. Thank you, Yaku, Suga thinks desperately as he shrugs at Hattori, who seems even more amused at the bits of Yaku’s voice he can make out. Suga waves an awkward goodbye with the hand holding the remains of his lunchbox, blushes once more when he realizes what he’s done, and hurriedly turns to drop the trash into a garbage can and speed-walk away, needing to have as much separation as he can between himself and the whole situation.

“Thank you, Yaku,” he says out loud, prayerfully, as soon as he rounds the corner of the school building. “Wow, I cannot thank you enough.”

“It’s fine,” Yaku says easily, voice instantly calming. Suga realizes the fire from earlier was all a show and his already high respect for Yaku shoots up higher still. “Most people I know don’t start conversations out of the blue with ‘what’s wrong,’ so I figured something was up and you didn’t just call to hear my ramblings about the more incompetent members of my team. Not that I’m at all reluctant to express those ramblings, mind you. At any and all hours, even. I’m probably sleeptalking about the kid by this point.”

“No, I didn’t. Not that I mind hearing you ramble.” Suga slowly moves back towards the corner of the school, peeking around it, ignoring the students who are giving him odd looks for his behavior. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if Hattori has followed him, but he’d rather know earlier than later if he did.

When he sees the scene playing out before his eyes, he freezes in place.

Well, Hattori hasn’t followed him, at least.

“So what’s up with you, then?” Yaku is asking on the other end of the phone.

“I’m… not sure,” he says honestly. “Hang on.”

Hattori is still sitting on the bench where Suga had left him. Now he is lounging back, wearing a pointed, smug expression Suga’s never seen on him before.

Daichi is standing in front of the bench, arms crossed. Suga can’t see his expression from the angle he’s at, but he can tell by the impression of a brick wall that Daichi’s putting on that he is not happy.

Did he just arrive…? Or had he been watching them the whole time, waiting for Suga to… what?

Suddenly, he can hear, as clear as the sunlight on the grass of the grounds, Daichi barking out, “I know what you’ve been doing. You have your warning.” He’s using the same voice he uses to yell at underclassmen on the court.

It’s really, really weird.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Suga admits into the phone.

“Well,” Yaku says with the same quiet assurance that had called to Suga during the practice match with Nekoma, shown him that he had an ally among their occasionally too-wild, usually too-hot-blooded teammates. “Do you have to know? Or is this a situation you just need to step back from?”

“I think...” Suga muses, leaning his temple against the school wall as he watches the pair at the benches, “I think it’s a situation involving me.” Is he being selfish? Is there anything else that might lead to Daichi and Hattori fighting? Something about the pep rally? No, the pep rally would not pull that much emotion from Daichi.

“Think? Or are you sure?” Yaku clarifies, as though he’s reading Suga’s mind.

“I think I might be sure,” Suga says. Daichi doesn’t seem pleased with the way the conversation by the benches is going, even though he’s speaking more quietly. He turns and Suga can finally see his face in profile. Suga’s heart jumps up into his throat as he realizes Daichi’s wearing that same angry expression from the past few weeks. He ducks back around the corner before Daichi can spot him. “The problem is that I don’t really understand what the situation is.”

“Just step back from it all,” Yaku advises. “If the situation is about you, and if it’s important, then it will find you no matter what you do. Better to have time to decide how you want to respond without the pressure of getting involved too early.”

Suga sighs. It’s the same vague but likely accurate advice he would’ve given himself, had he not been in the middle of it all.

“You’re right,” he says, knowing it’s the same thing he would have wanted to hear had he been on the other end of this phone call. He manages a small smile. “Can I give you some advice for your underclassman issue, then?”

“Ugh, if you must,” Yaku mutters, calm confidence gone, clearly not thrilled about the change in topic.

“Just remember how cute they are,” Suga advises, smile widening and becoming a touch more honest. “Underclassmen, I mean. They try so hard, even though they’re so innocent and inexperienced, and they have so much hope and wonder in their eyes… it’s really adorable.”

“You’re a twisted man, Suga-kun,” Yaku grumbles. “Ugh. This guy’s cute like a crazed tiger, maybe. Anyway. My lunch break’s almost up and I assume yours is too. Good luck with practice and mysterious situations and everything.”

“Sure,” Suga says. “Thanks.”

After he puts his phone away, he takes a deep breath and walks back around the corner. Both Daichi and Hattori are gone now. He’s not going to purposefully seek out either of them. He’ll wait and see what happens. And, in the meantime, he’ll try to figure out how he wants to respond.

Well, okay, his response to the Hattori situation is easy enough. He needs to find a way to let him down without hurting his feelings. It seems like Hattori is going through a hard enough time without being rejected too brutally. But Suga can’t just give in. If he is going to sacrifice the ease of a “normal” life, that future with the wife and child that he could have had, maybe, one day, then it’s only going to be because he is living the life that he wants. He thinks he knows himself well enough to know that too-polished, smooth but empty Hattori is not what he wants.

If he’s truly being honest, he already knows exactly what he wants. He’s known since his second year of high school, at least.

He wants shoulders built like a wall and tan skin that’s always warm when it brushes his. He wants a comforting hand on his shoulder, a kick in the shins, a belly-deep laugh. He wants a steady, confident voice telling him “if we’re doing it together, I don’t think anything can stop us.” 

And he knows that he has that already. 

Daichi is the best friend he could possibly have. Daichi will not abandon him. It might mean that Suga might not ever have a more romantically-inclined entanglement with anyone at all, if he’s not going to follow the lie-marriage-child path, that he might have to just live alone in the shadow of Daichi’s eventual marriage, his eventual family, but so long as Suga can still be there, by his side, through it all…

So long as he can still have Daichi, however he can have him, he doesn’t really mind what else life throws at him. He has what he needs. The Hattori’s of the world will be able to figure themselves out without him. Suga won’t be mean about it, of course, but, now that he has a better idea of what’s going on, he’ll make sure to speak with him honestly, as soon as the opportunity arises.

Which means all he really needs to decide about this situation is how he feels about Daichi’s evident involvement. One the one hand, while he appreciates Daichi looking out for him, it’s not at all necessary. Suga can certainly handle the situation himself, now that he understands all the different facets of it. However, he’s known Daichi for long enough to know that Daichi won’t see it that way. Daichi is nothing if not a knight, determined to protect all those who he views as falling under his domain.

It is probably not worth the strain to tell Daichi that he knows he has been intruding. Daichi will just do what Daichi wants to do.

Plus, if he is just going to be rejecting Hattori’s awkward non-confession, then it will hopefully cease to be an issue. Everything can go back to the way it was.

Daichi’s seat is still empty by the time Suga gets back to the classroom, but Suga reminds himself that he’s staying out of it for now and doesn’t go looking for him. Instead, he spends his time straightening and preparing his notes before the teacher resumes his lecture. When Daichi rushes in right before class resumes, a pensive look on his face, there’s not enough time to discuss anything at all about what happened during that lunch break.

It’s for the best, Suga reminds himself. He’s staying out of whatever the situation is. Meanwhile, school is important and it needs his focus. He will not get involved.

Except that, as soon as class ends, Michimiya is in the doorway calling out, “Sugawara! Can we talk?”

He is slowly learning that it doesn’t matter if he’s prepared or not, life is just going to keep throwing strange things in his way.

He is not overly surprised when Daichi sputters “Michimiya!” and jumps up nearly immediately, pushing his way to the door through the swarm of other students. It is a very real possibility that Michimiya actually wants to speak with Daichi, anyway, and calling out to Suga was a mistake. A weird mistake for Michimiya to make, sure, but still within the realm of possibility. Suga packs up at his desk, taking his time as he studies the way that Daichi is speaking with Michimiya, the way he bends in ever so slightly to hear her better, the intensely focused look on his face as he responds. They look good together. A perfect match.

Suga really wouldn’t mind living an entire life where he was the unofficial observer, the third wheel to their love story. He already is, in many ways. Boy and girl, both captains of their high school volleyball teams, friends from middle school... until she finally confesses, probably right before graduation, perhaps asking for the second button of his uniform, which of course he will freely give. They’ll inherit his family’s house, he’ll take on his father’s occupation, she’ll raise their two sons to be perfect gentlemen and, likely, perfect volleyball players. 

It is practically a modern fairy tale. With perhaps more volleyball than is widely acceptable, but that might be excused by the modern angle of it all, Suga supposes.

Suga realizes he’s been hanging back and monitoring for too long when Michimiya marches up to him instead of remaining by the door and waiting for Suga to make it over to her. Daichi is trailing her, hovering over her shoulder, looking oddly pained. Like one of those shoulder-angels. A shoulder angel who feels really badly about the advice they’ve given.

“Sugawara, I’m sorry, I know you have practice, but would you please come speak with me first?” She smiles at him, cheeks a little pink. She very purposefully does not look at Daichi. “In private, please?”

“So long as my captain doesn’t mind,” Suga says easily, glancing at him.

He has no idea what Michimiya could possibly want to say to him, and the feeling of confusion only grows as he sees the pained look slip off of Daichi’s face. It’s replaced by a blank mask as he says, “This is really her business. And yours. Just join us whenever you’re ready.”

“Alright,” Suga acknowledges. He lifts his bag over his shoulder and follows Michimiya as she marches to the doorway.

“We’ll find a quiet spot outside,” she says. “This shouldn’t take long, I promise.”

“It’s fine, Michimiya,” Suga assures her. “I really don’t mind. You have cram school to get to as well, don’t you?”

“Right,” Michimiya says, nodding decisively as though he’s said something truly profound.

She doesn’t say another word until she leads him to one of the taller trees on the grounds, double-checking to make sure that the trunk is mostly obscuring the sight of them from the main path. The silence and the odd choice of location for the conversation begin to make Suga nervous. It would be nice to be able to find his year-mates as predictable as his underclassmen, sometimes. Daichi manages, somehow, usually able to read both Suga and Asahi like books, even if his reading weirdly fails when it comes to Michimiya; still, it clearly isn’t impossible.

His read is so off, as a matter of fact, that he swears his heart almost stops when Michimiya drops to her knees and bows all the way forward until her forehead touches dirt, hands planted firmly on either side of her bent head.

“Please!” she yells into the grass. “Please forgive me!”

“M-Michimiya!” Suga cries, immediately crouching next to her and trying to get her to stand. “What are you doing?”

“Please forgive me!” she repeats again, not budging despite Suga’s hands on her shoulders. “It’s all my fault!”

“Of course I’ll forgive you,” Suga says, confused and desperate to not make his unfortunate friend-of-a-friend feel any worse than she clearly already does. “This is too excessive, Michimiya.”

Michimiya takes a deep breath and probably inhales more soil and insects than Suga really wants to think about it. She plows on regardless, saying, in a quieter voice so that Suga has to lean in to hear her, “One of my friends is in the calligraphy club. I think… I know she’s the one who told. About you. To the one who made the banner. And it’s all my fault. I’ve… I’ve complained about you to her before. About how it’s not fair that you get to… to hide. And be with Sawamura all the time. On a lie. But I didn’t know!” She looks up at him, finally, and Suga is stunned to see the tear-streaks she already has running down her face, tear after large tear rushing down and engraving the tracks still further, mixing with the dirt she managed to pick up while pushing her face into the ground. “I didn’t know for sure, it was just talk between friends and I was just so jealous. I didn’t know that she’d say anything about it to anyone else. A-and. I didn’t know anyone was d-doing things to you, because of it. I’m really, truly sorry.” She bows forward again, face once again hidden.

It’s a lot to take in all at once. Suga feels his legs slump from underneath him, sending him to his knees next to her. 

So Michimiya is the one who “figured it out.” Only she hadn’t. It had just been jealousy speaking; she had been spreading the rumor with no idea she had been right. Suga hadn’t actually done or said anything suspicious. It had just been poor luck. And Michimiya hadn’t known about the banner beforehand. Poor luck and coincidence.

“Bad karma,” his brain whispers to him, traitorously. He had clearly fallen into a trap made of it, somehow.

“It’s okay,” Suga finds himself saying aloud, voice soft, the words slowly working their way through lips that feel numb. “Really, Michimiya, it’s okay.” And he can no longer predict himself, either, evidently, because the next thing he says is, “You’re right, you know.”

She finally sits back on her knees, face streaked with tears and dirt and Suga feels a somber note of pity ring deep in his chest. He pulls out a tissue from his back pocket and leans in to wipe off some of the marks. He’s a little surprised when she lets him, eyes still cast down, fists clenched on top of her knees.

“You’re right,” he says again, quietly, hands falling to rest on his own knees. “About me. About it being unfair that I’m able to spend so much time with Daichi, time that you just… can’t. And I know it makes me selfish, because I fully planned to keep my secret forever, because I never, ever wanted to give that up. But, Michimiya…” She finally looks up, meeting his eyes. Her face is red with the remains of tears, but the dirt, at least, is gone. “I guess it’s a little bit funny.” He offers her a small smile, a peace offering. “I’ve been jealous of you too, for years now. Because I can spend this time with him, here and now, but… not always. One day I’ll lose that time. I won’t ever be able to be what he needs. Not like you will. So we both have what the other one wants, I guess.”

Michimiya matches his smile with an equally small one. It’s just as honest, though, and Suga remembers how much he likes Michimiya, her earnestness and bravery, her dedication and extreme kind heartedness. Really, she’s as close to the female version of Daichi as anyone he’s ever met. Perhaps, he reminds himself as she suddenly smacks herself on her cheeks, his own smile widening, perhaps a little bit higher strung. But still a good person. She’ll be good for Daichi, when he finally figures it all out.

“You’re right,” she tells him. Her cheeks had been so red because of the tears that there’s barely any evidence of the smack. “I wasn’t being fair to you, at all. I truly am sorry, Sugawara. I really, really like you as a person. I couldn’t believe it when Sawamura told me what was going on.”

Something about that sounds a little off to Suga. His mind must have fastened on to it instinctively, because almost before he knows it he is asking, “Daichi told you?”

Michimiya slaps both hands over her mouth immediately, eyes going wide. Clearly, she wasn’t supposed to divulge that piece of information, for whatever reason. He stares at her, smile fading, knowing his eyes are probably sharper than she’s used to seeing. 

Realizing that Suga’s not going to just let it drop, her hands fall away and she slowly says, “He, ah. Wanted to use my friends in the calligraphy club. When he was trying to figure out who had written the banner. I made him promise to tell me what he found out, because I already felt a little bit guilty. But he didn’t tell me how bad it had all gotten until today. He was really upset after lunch when he had been fine earlier and I asked and…”

“He tried to figure out who had written the banner?” But Suga shakes his head at his own question. Of course Daichi had tried to figure out who had written the banner. Daichi wasn’t one to leave any stone of over-protection unturned. “After lunch?” he asks instead. “Why would he have been upset then? Nothing new has happened in… in more than a week, at least.”

But Michimiya slides her hands back over her mouth and shakes her head. “No,” she says, voice foggy and muffled between her fingers. “I’ve said more than is my place already. You’ll have to talk to Sawamura about it.”

Suga makes a face, since he had planned on doing the opposite of that for as long as possible.

Michimiya giggles a little at his face and then drops her hands again. “Sugawara…” she says, slowly, softly. “I think… I think you’re right, about how it’s not fair for me to hold anything against you, but… but I think you’re wrong, too. Sawamura needs you. More than he needs me, definitely. He definitely notices you more than… more than I’ve ever known him to notice a girl. And… and I don’t think you should lose hope, either!” There’s a fierce light slowly kindling in her eyes, reminding Suga that she had been the girls’ volleyball captain for a reason. “Times are changing, you know! You might have just as much of a chance at that future as I do! After all, didn’t you hear about that one band guy? He has his own tv show, now, and they’re doing a big big special episode next weekend!”

Suga winces, but grins at her. “I’m not so sure about all that, but I suppose I appreciate your optimism.”

Michimiya wags a finger at him. “Don’t think I’ll give up easily, though. I love him just as much as you do.” Suga watches, amused, as she goes iridescently scarlet. And here he was, thinking it would be physically impossible for her to go any redder.

“Was that the first time you’ve said it out loud?” he asks, trying to keep his voice gentle even as he’s teasing.

“Ha!” she says, pointing her finger with renewed vigor. It would’ve had more power if she didn’t still look like someone had poured red paint all over her face. “And you didn’t deny it, either!”

It is Suga’s turn to feel the rush of heat into his cheeks as he flushes. “I suppose not,” he admits, trying to stay as positive as she always is. 

Michimiya nods, then offers him her hand. “Rivals,” she announces, smiling at him. “Friendly rivals.”

Suga laughs. He knows he’s no real threat to Michimiya, but far be it from him to turn down an invitation like that. “Friendly rivals,” he acknowledges, and taps their hands together. “Now don’t you have a class to be getting to?”

“Ack,” Michimiya chokes out, quickly standing and brushing the remaining dirt off her skirt. “Right. Good luck at practice today, Sugawara. And in general, you know.”

Like a hurricane, she’s gone. Suga smiles after her for a moment before standing himself, brushing his own knees free of dirt and turning to head towards the boys’ practice gym. He rounds a corner of the building and stops. Daichi is waiting there, leaning against the wall, staring at the ground.

Suga’s heart drops down, out through the bottom of his feet.

“D-Daichi,” he manages to stutter out. “Ah… you…” He has no idea where he’s going with this. How can he ask if Daichi heard something without making him suspicious if he didn’t?

But Daichi solves the whole situation for him, looking up with a soft smile. “Hey. Did it go okay? I know she didn’t want me to interfere, and I’m still not sure why she blames herself so much, since she wouldn’t tell me, but...”

And he’s earnest and wonderful and of course he wouldn’t eavesdrop, he’s Daichi. Suga feels his heart rise back into its normal position and he grins at his friend.

“Yeah,” he says. “It was fine.” His grin widens. “Michimiya is an interesting girl, isn’t she?”

Daichi laughs, clearly relieved that his friends are okay with each other. “That’s one way to put it,” he says.

Suga nudges Daichi’s shoulder with his own as they fall in step to head to practice. “Waiting to see how the conversation went… You’re such a worry-wart,” he teases. “You’re going to go gray, and then all the underclassmen will start calling you Sawamura-sensei.”

Daichi nudges back and Suga basks in the feeling of contentment the touch brings with it. “Maybe Nishinoya and Tanaka would stop screaming during matches if I threatened to give them kanji to memorize,” Daichi muses, and he’s smiling when Suga glances up at him.

Michimiya is wrong about some things. He’s not lying, not really. If this is the most he could ever have, Daichi’s shoulder solidly pressed against his own, he would always, always be happy. Wanting anything more... that would just be selfish.


	5. Fairy Tales

It turns out that Hattori Masato is a very stubborn person. The next time he comes to classroom four for lunch, Suga takes him aside and tells him that, while he’s flattered by the compliment, he’s not really interested in any kind of relationship.

Hattori’s response is just a quick laugh, a wink, and the comment, “Well, I’ll just have to wear you down then, won’t I?”

It had… not been the response that Suga had been expecting.

Luckily, he has volleyball to focus on as he avoids Hattori whenever possible. After all, he may not be able to control Hattori, but he can definitely control the amount of practice and preparation he puts into the Inter-Highs.

And, for a glorious moment, he’s able to play in a match again.

And then, far too soon, it’s over.

Potentially forever.

It would definitely be for forever if his teachers and mother had the final say, he knows.

But he’s not going to give up, not that easily. It’s reassuring when Asahi agrees. It’s disappointing but not surprising when Daichi tries to object at first, tries to put the team’s future needs first.

Daichi is wrong, though. The team does still need them, right now. 

The team still needs Daichi, specifically. Suga knows Daichi didn’t notice at the time or think about it after, but Suga is very aware of how Daichi’s gentle comment to Yamaguchi during the match against Seijoh had saved the mood of the entire team. Daichi is a natural leader and can encourage the underclassmen in a way that Coach Ukai still struggles with.

Suga is proud of him when he agrees to stick it out. And a little bit selfishly excited too, he’ll admit. So long as they don’t give up, so long as they stay connected, so long as they win… then they’ll get to stay on the court.

And he wants to stay on the court, no matter what. Stay with Daichi and Asahi, with their underclassmen, with the feeling of the ball arcing away from his fingers in just the direction it needs to go.

Plus, the court has become far, far less confusing than certain other aspects of his life.

The situation between Hattori and Daichi is clearly coming to a head. Hattori has continued to visit their class for lunch each day, like clockwork. It would be fine, Suga would find a way to deal with it, except…

Except Daichi refuses to speak when Hattori is there. At all.

And all Hattori will talk about is how beautiful Suga’s face is.

Suga has started spending more and more of his lunch breaks dragging Asahi to different gyms and corners of the school grounds to practice.

It’s during one of these half-hiding practice sessions that Asahi finally says to him, “Ah, I don’t think either of them are going to stop unless you say something, you know.”

Suga tosses the next ball a bit faster than he normally does, making Asahi scramble to try to hit it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Suga,” Asahi sighs. He doesn’t say anything about the purposefully mean toss, because he’s Asahi. It makes Suga feel more guilty than he would’ve if Asahi had called him on it. Sometimes, Suga wonders if Asahi uses his Asahi-ness on purpose. Like a particularly pathetic giant bearded weapon. “I know you don’t like doing things to help yourself, and Daichi knows it too. I think Daichi’s just worried about you. That you’re not going to say anything if something bad happens.”

“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Suga says. He thinks he’s keeping his voice patient, but the half-terrified look Asahi gives him makes him wonder if he might’ve accidentally bypassed patient entirely and gone straight to cold.

“I don’t know if I agree,” Asahi says, throwing Suga the ball and readying himself to run up for the spike. It’s a clean hit, Suga having slowed himself back down again. As Asahi lands, the ball thudding cleanly down onto the other half of the court, he says, “I mean, would you have said anything about the bullying if Daichi hadn’t seen it himself?”

“Bullying is too strong a word,” Suga says, turning to grab another ball. “Let’s try something new, like a broad jump.”

“W-what…?” Asahi stammers as Suga chucks the ball at him. “I can’t…” But he still throws the ball back and takes off when Suga gives the toss. He misses, but it was closer than Suga had been expecting.

“Not bad,” he acknowledges. “Hey, you think we can challenge Hinata and Kageyama one day, maybe?”

“Suga,” Asahi sighs again, this one coming out a little closer to a whine. 

“It wasn’t really bullying,” Suga says, knowing what Asahi wants. “Real bullying is the whole class turning their backs on you when you enter the room. That sort of thing.”

Asahi fetches the missed ball and spins it nervously in his hands. “Even if it had been like that, Suga, you just would’ve come up with a different name for it. Some reason why it didn’t count.” He tosses the ball up into the air a few times, catching it solidly each time. “I think Daichi is worried that, if he doesn’t keep an eye on you, something bad will happen and none of us will know until it’s too late.”

“You two don’t trust me to take care of myself, hm?” Suga sneaks a hand out and taps the ball out of Asahi’s loose grip, grabbing it as it bounces towards him. He retreats a few steps and then throws it at Asahi’s chest, hard. It’s not as satisfying when Asahi catches it relatively easily, although his wince at the force of the throw is a little gratifying. 

“Not really,” Asahi says, which is less gratifying. Suga hadn’t really expected him to admit that so openly.

He pauses. Asahi and Daichi both… they’ve really been worried, haven’t they? He really is being too hard on them. “I do appreciate it,” he admits, quietly. “I’m lucky to have such good friends.”

Asahi tosses the ball back to him, a gentle curve, much nicer than Suga’s throw. Suga catches it, smiling at him. “But seriously,” he continues, holding the ball loosely, making sure to meet Asahi’s gaze head-on. “All that stopped weeks ago. You guys worry too much.”

“If it were anyone else but you in this situation, Suga,” Asahi says, not looking away, which is a weirdly aggressive move for him, “you would have figured it out by now.”

“What do you mean?” Suga asks, undoing a button near his collar as he holds the volleyball carelessly under an elbow. It’s awfully hot out. Summer is definitely starting strong. “Asahi, you’re saying weird things.”

“I’m not!” Asahi says, face going pink in clear recognition that he definitely is. “It’s true, Suga. You’re always keeping watch over everyone else but you’re really, really bad at watching out for yourself. And… with something like this… I mean, if it was Hinata that it had happened to, or me, or... or just anyone else, you would’ve figured it out ages ago.”

“Figured what out?” Suga presses, and Asahi goes even pinker, breaking that unnatural eye contact.

“W-well,” he manages to stutter, looking down at his shoes. “J-just… that the bullying stopped when Hattori-san started speaking with you.”

Suga frowns a little. It’s an interesting observation, and Asahi’s right, it’s a connection he hadn’t made himself. “Do you think he’s intimidating the people who were doing it, somehow?”

Asahi scrubs a hand against the back of his neck, shrugging. “Ah… I think you should try to think about why someone might’ve done something like that in the first place, Suga. The things they did… they were pretty personal, weren’t they? Not just to embarrass you in front of large groups. You should think, um, about what might be someone’s motivation. To do things like that.”

That seems to be all that Asahi is willing to say on the matter, from the way he grabs another ball and gets ready to throw it, ignoring the ball already under Suga’s arm. But Suga knows Asahi, knows that even saying this much was probably very difficult.

“I’ll think about it, I promise,” he says, dropping the ball he’s holding so that he can handle a new toss. 

The thought of breaking a promise to Asahi, even though Asahi would likely never know, does not sit right with Suga, so he truly does make an effort to think about it. 

Unfortunately, that doesn’t get him very far. He tries to tally up what he grudgingly labels the bullying: the paint on his bag, notes on his desk, piss on his uniform, thumbtacks in his gym shoes…

He can’t for the life of him figure out what they have in common. Some were in the classroom while some were in the clubroom or by the gym, some involved vandalism of his property but some did not. After spending the day thinking about it, distracted enough to give a positively shameful performance during afternoon practice, he is no better off than before, and he is finally getting frustrated enough to want to take an easy path out.

So, after practice, as he and Daichi are walking over to the clubroom, he gives in.

“Why did the bullying stop?” he asks, eyes staring straight ahead. “You know, don’t you?”

He’s not overly surprised when Daichi doesn’t answer him immediately. After all, Suga doesn’t think he has been particularly subtle about avoiding any and every conversation on the topic for the past few weeks. 

“Did Asahi finally say something?” Daichi asks as they’re climbing the stairs.

Suga snorts softly. “Well, in his own Asahi-way, I suppose.”

“Of course,” Daichi sighs as he opens the door. The room’s empty of teammates, though it looks like Nishinoya accidentally left his school uniform jacket behind again, stuffed into a ball on one of the metal shelves. Suga drifts over to uncrumple it, hanging it up instead. 

“You remember when I went to practice early, the day of your, uh… announcement?” Daichi asks, voice slow and cautious. Suga looks over to see that he’s facing the opposite set of shelves, tugging off his practice shirt and fishing a clean one from his bag.

“Yes,” Suga says, “the day of the thumbtacks.” He tugs off his own practice shirt, enjoying the brief sensation of fresh air against his sweaty skin before he rummages around for a clean replacement. 

Daichi’s voice is slightly muffled as he tugs a new shirt on. “I went early because I knew there’d be something new done. I… It’s a long story.”

“What else am I going to do tonight?” Suga asks simply, pulling his track pants on over his boxers. When he glances over at Daichi, Daichi is looking at him with an expression he can’t read.

“I guess it’s not that long,” Daichi admits, looking down as he pulls his pants on as well. “I, uh. I don’t know if you heard from Michimiya, but I tried investigating the banner through the calligraphy club. I mean, it was written so flashily… Anyway, it took a while to get anyone to admit to anything.”

“Ah,” Suga breathes out, leaning against the shelves and then giving in and sliding down to sit on the floor. His legs are feeling a little wobbly. Whether because of the intenseness of the practice or because of some strange premonition that he won’t like what’s coming, he doesn’t know. “That’s where you were going after class, the first week of school.”

“Yes,” Daichi admits, sitting with his back against the opposite shelves, facing him. “Well, I finally talked to someone who had helped someone else write the banner for a third someone…” He sighs, running his fingers through his short, dark hair. “To make a long story a little bit shorter, I learned that Hattori had made the banner. Along with several female students who were really excited to help, I guess. I thought that was strange, since his own name had been on it. So I found one of the students who had helped him, to try to figure out what was going on. It took me a couple more weeks to finally get her to talk to me. When she did, she told me that he had just been trying to take the opportunity of a high-profile announcement of sexuality to try to make a similar movement happen at Karasuno.”

Suga hums and leans forward, balancing his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. Interesting. So Hattori had purposefully outed himself? He isn’t entirely shocked, he supposes. Hattori had seemed far more comfortable with many aspects of the situation than Suga had been. Still, he won’t be distracted from his goal in this conversation. “That doesn’t really explain the weeks of angry-Daichi, though,” he points out.

“Right.” Daichi, never one to fiddle with his fingers or engage in any other nervous tic, just steadily meets his eyes, sitting calmly opposite him. “I also learned from this other student that Hattori had decided to single you out for special attention, as well. He, ah… I think he wanted you to feel like your… uh, sexuality, I guess, made you alone. So that you’d turn to him, I think.” Despite his steady gaze, Daichi’s cheeks start turning ever so slightly red.

Suga feels like he’s seeing the past month flashing before his eyes, details that he’d ignored at the time suddenly sparking to his attention. The antagonistic way Daichi had greeted Hattori outside the gym. Daichi saying “This is your warning.” Hattori’s invitation to form a special club with him. The attacks crafted so specifically to him, several left purposefully in the clubroom. So that others on the team would see? So the others would turn on him? So he’d feel alone? 

“So I guess he wasn’t joking around, when he offered to date me,” he says out loud. “I wasn’t sure… It is a strange approach to take to someone you like, though.”

“I do think he genuinely likes you,” Daichi says, voice roughening a little. Suga tries to refocus on the here-and-now, eyes drifting from their far off stare to focus instead on Daichi’s face, which seems even more red than before. “So I didn’t want to say anything. I told him to stop with the bullying, of course. That he’d have to… to win you over without any tricks, if he really wanted you.”

Suga blinks. “Daichi,” he says, voice slow and thick in his throat. “Were you testing me?”

“What?” Daichi asks, but he’s not making eye contact anymore, looking off to the side even though Suga knows there’s nothing there. 

“Were you trying to see if I’d pick… some new club, some new friend, over volleyball?” Suga asks. He doesn’t add, “Over you?” but he thinks the question is definitely implied.

Daichi lets out a short, abrupt sigh. “No, I wasn’t,” he protests. “I just didn’t want to unfairly influence you. Suga, if this is the kind of thing you want, if that’s the future you want, what kind of friend would I be if I tried to stop you?” He scowls suddenly, face thunderous. “Even if that guy is a huge asshole and doesn’t deserve the attention of your littlest toe.”

Suga blinks. Daichi does not usually curse at other people like that.

Daichi is also clearly not done speaking. “I knew you’d never look into this on your own. You’re too worried about everyone else around you, Suga. You need a full-time caretaker. You let people take advantage of you.”

“That’s not fair,” Suga protests, shying back a little. He had not expected this conversation to suddenly become an attack on him. And it is unfair. He takes care of himself perfectly well. “I’ve made it this far entirely fine--”

Daichi raises a hand, interrupting him, and starts ticking off his fingers. “You let your mother use you as a maid and chef even though you’re already overloaded with work from school and club. You help Nishinoya and Tanaka study at the expense of your own homework time. You give up your position to Kageyama even though you fought for years and years to get this far. You lose sleep to come up with new ideas and strategies for other members of the team. You worry about Asahi and I all the time, even when you’re the one who’s being attacked.” He waves his now-open hand in Suga’s direction. “Should I start counting on my other hand, or will you just admit it?” 

Suga gapes at him. “I’m not that bad…” he mutters, hiding his face in his hands, embarrassed and frustrated. Daichi is just exaggerating, blowing all kinds of things up out of proportion. It’s not fair, even if he is feeling a little fizzy with the underhanded compliment of it all.

“You are,” Daichi says, steady and sure as always. “And it’s part of what makes you so, so amazing.”

Suga glances up again, through his fingers. Daichi is still a little bit red, looking at him steadily.

Not so underhanded, then. An overhanded compliment, even. Suga is never going to stop blushing.

“You deserve better in life, Suga,” Daichi says, quieter. Suga feels his heart take a frog-leap, lodging itself in his throat. “Better than some piece of garbage like Hattori.”

“You don’t have to worry,” he says thickly, trying to talk around his tongue, which seems to only want to get in the way right now. “Hattori does not interest me. I assumed he needed my help--” He drops his hands in order to more effectively make a face at Daichi, poking his tongue out when Daichi looks at him in exasperation. “I know, I know! Just… I was never interested in him like that. And I won’t be, I promise.”

“Don’t promise me that,” Daichi tells him, face scrunching into another frown. “Don’t promise me that you’ll avoid things. Promise me that you’re going to find something that you do want, in life. And that you’ll go after it. Don’t just let someone else decide your entire destiny, Suga.”

Suga should probably worry about how swollen his tongue feels. His body is going hot and cold in turns.

“And,” he manages to croak out, trying to force the words past a face that’s feeling entirely uncooperative, “what if what I want requires someone else’s decision?”

Daichi’s frown deepens, brow wrinkling into that old man furrow that Suga wants to drag his thumb over, smooth out. “What do you mean?”

“I…” Suga clutches a hand into his shirt, over his heart, which seems to be moving at a million times its normal pace. He had to do something or he was going to touch Daichi’s face and quite possibly not be able to stop. “Daichi… you’re my best friend.”

“Are you alright?” Daichi asks, leaning in closer, trying to meet his eyes.

“I never want to leave your side,” Suga admits, finally allowing their eyes to connect. “Daichi, all I want in life is to stay by your side. For the rest of high school, for college, for the rest of my life, I just want to be near you.”

“What?” Daichi asks, voice dropping quieter. “What do you mean?”

“Please,” Suga says. He thinks he might be babbling. He is probably babbling. He needs to stop before he ruins everything, but there’s a wall in his chest, stopping the words from falling back down into his gut, where he would have the chance to package them up and keep them safe. He hadn’t planned on saying any of this, certainly not now, not in their clubroom, but he’s quickly realizing he might not have much choice in the matter. It feels like he’s running downhill, picking up more speed than he can handle, rocketing towards a finish line and a cliff all at once. “I don’t want you to hate me, Daichi.”

“I told you before, Suga, I could never hate you--”

“I’m in love with you,” Suga says and it’s like a wall falling down and a star exploding and a perfect shutout game and an intense case of the flu all at the same time. He can’t even look at Daichi’s reaction, leaning down in an almost-bow from as he faces the ground, trying to calm the roiling in his stomach. “I’m so sorry, Daichi. I don’t want it to change anything. I don’t need anything from you. I just… I want to be part of your fairy tale, even if all I can be is a tiny, insignificant side character.”

“My fairy tale?” Daichi asks, clearly confused even though Suga doesn’t have the courage to face him to see for sure. “What are you talking about, Suga…? You love… What’s going on?”

Daichi is such an idiot, Suga thinks with a familiar mixture of adoration and exasperation. At least Michimiya will be proud of him for finally being honest. 

He stands up all at once, barely missing knocking his head into Daichi’s where Daichi had been leaning in, clearly on the verge of trying to physically shake some sense into him. This puts Daichi at a rather awkward angle with the rest of Suga’s anatomy and he straightens immediately, cheeks a deep, deep red now.

“Don’t worry about it, Daichi,” Suga says, as cheerfully as he can, knowing that his cheeks are probably just as red as Daichi’s. “Let’s go home. We have to be back early tomorrow for practice.”

He turns to the door but Daichi stands and catches his wrist, refusing to let him leave. 

“I didn’t get a chance to answer your confession,” Daichi says to the back of Suga’s head. 

“There’s no need!” Suga says. “It’s fine. In fact, please don’t. Really, really, Daichi, it doesn’t mean--”

Daichi just groans “Suga,” and then he’s tugging on Suga’s hand, turning him around.

And then Suga is suddenly crowded up against the door, the front of him going immediately warm in a way that makes him worry that he’s going to get sick until he realizes that it’s because Daichi is there, right there, leaning in against his chest, tilting his head just enough to brush their lips together, soft and uncertain.

As a first kiss, it leaves a lot to be desired. It’s the lightest of sensations, barely a brush of skin to skin. The fact that they are basically the same height, despite the two and a half centimeters between them, means that Suga’s hands flap uselessly right around Daichi’s hips and wind up crashing into his, which are doing the same thing. Their noses knock a little awkwardly and Suga momentarily worries that he won’t be able to breathe with their mouths occupied and their noses squashed like that. Except then it’s over, almost as soon as it starts, skin no longer in contact just as easily as it was right beforehand.

As a first kiss, it’s perfect. Daichi just kissed him. He just kissed Daichi.

Perfect and terrible. Like reaching Nirvana and being tossed out and knowing that there’s no going back.

There’s so much heat and blood in Suga’s face that he’s probably going to catch on fire any minute now. 

“You can’t, Daichi,” he exhorts as soon as he gets his breath back. Daichi is still so close, noses almost brushing, hands finally settling on each others’ waists, rumpling thin t-shirts, feeling hotter than usual in the still summer air of the clubroom. Even as he tries to tell Daichi off, Suga can’t convince his hands to let go. “You don’t want this.”

“I do,” Daichi says, firmly but quietly, each breath of a word coasting over Suga’s mouth like a reminder, like another kiss. One hand comes up and fingertips brush softly against Suga’s cheek. They’re warm. So warm. Suga is going to catch on fire, seriously. “Suga, I don’t know anything about this kind of thing. I don’t think I’m… I don’t think I’m gay. But I know that I want you in my future, too. Worrying and watching over me and letting me watch over you. The thought of someone else taking that… I hate it.”

“That’s just jealousy, Daichi,” Suga insists, trying to pull back, but there’s nowhere to go, not with Daichi having essentially trapped him against the door. “I already told you that I want to stay with you no matter what. You don’t have to… to kiss me, or anything like that. You’re going to marry a nice girl and have a nice family and take over your father’s job…”

“I already told you I don’t want that,” Daichi insists just as strongly, moving in closer so that his chest brushes against Suga with every word. It’s only because they’re so close in height that they can still make eye contact and Suga realizes he couldn’t look anywhere else if he wanted to, Daichi’s eyes fiery and warm and honest and right there. “The job, at least, and maybe not the rest. I’ve had a little while to think about it, over the past couple of months. Of what it might be like if someone else gets you. It’s made me think about what I want.” He laughs, another gentle puff of air against Suga’s lips. “It’s you, Suga. I want to do all of that, do everything, with you.”

“But your family,” Suga says. The thought’s like a bucket of cold water dumped over top of him and he sees a matching darkness enter Daichi’s eyes. Finally feeling like he’s a little bit in control of his own limbs, he drops down and under Daichi’s arm before he can react, moving back into the center of the room. “You already can’t tell them about the job you actually want, because you’re worried about letting them down. Can you even imagine…? Something like this? You’d never want to disappoint them like that, Daichi.”

Daichi turns to face him, leaning against the door so that Suga still can’t leave, though he at least has more space now. 

“You can’t make that decision for me, Suga,” Daichi informs him. It’s weird, Suga thinks dazedly, as though from a distance. Daichi should look different somehow, now, right? But he’s the same Daichi as always, a solid rock that Suga could rest on forever, if he only let himself. “Don’t you dare try to deny something that we both want just because you think you’re fighting in my best interests. Trust me to fight for me, for once.”

Resting would be too easy. “I care for you too much to let you throw away everything that your life could be for some jealousy and… and undefined feelings you have.”

Daichi stares him down for a moment and Suga stares back. This is too serious a moment for retreating.

“Fine,” Daichi finally grits out. He marches forward but doesn’t take Suga’s hand again, just crossing his arms over his chest, leaving Suga room to react however he’d like. “You told your mother you were coming over for dinner already, right?”

“That’s easy enough to change,” Suga tells him. He hugs one of his arms to his chest as well, feeling exposed now that Daichi isn’t right up against him to keep him warm and is instead standing several paces away, some mixture of the thoughtful captain face and the angry Daichi face twisting his features. 

“Don’t change it,” Daichi says. “Not unless you want to.”

“I don’t want to make things more difficult for you,” Suga insists.

“And I want you to come home with me.” Daichi manages a smile, though his face still looks thoughtful. “I think I have something to prove.”

Suga shivers a little in apprehension. He doesn’t particularly like the sound of that. But he bows his head, a little formally, a little cowardly, and says, “Yes, okay. I’ll go.”

“Then let’s go,” Daichi says. 

The walk to Daichi’s house is quiet and uncomfortable in a way that Suga absolutely hates. Suga walks a little further away from Daichi than he normally does, hyper aware of each swing of Daichi’s arms and twitch of his fingers, careful that they never come too close. They make awkward, stilted conversation about their expectations for the summer training camp, about seeing Nekoma again.

“Mom, we’re home,” Daichi says as soon as they step inside. Suga removes his shoes in silence. His wondering at what Daichi has planned feels like it has become a physical mass inside of him. He’s not sure he’s even capable of speech any more. If all Daichi has planned is some sort of homework session to prove everything can stay the same, then he’s going to have to figure out how to make it work with a silent Suga.

Daichi’s mom appears in her normal quasi-robotic, quasi-classic novel heroine haze, this time from the direction of the kitchen. “Welcome home,” she murmurs at them both. “How was practice?”

Before Suga can say anything, before he can react at all, Daichi has snagged his hand within his own and is bowing to his mother.

“Mother,” he says as Suga squeaks and tries to tug his hand away, failing miserably. “I am in love with Suga. Also, I want to study sports medicine.”

“Daichi!” Suga squawks at a pitch he’s a little ashamed to be able to reach. Well, evidently he’s capable of speech again, at least.

Daichi’s mom looks from Daichi’s face to his own. Suga’s not sure what expression he should be wearing and hopes that he doesn’t look too frightened and bedraggled, which is about all he is feeling right now. That and fascination with the interesting calluses on the hand currently clasped tightly around his own. From diving receives, maybe? 

… This is really, really not the time to be wondering.

“I’m happy for you,” Daichi’s mother says, and that is definitely not what Suga had been expecting. She smiles, a gentle upturn of her lips. She looks decidedly less robotic that way. “Daichi…” She steps in and Suga lets out another squeak as he’s suddenly tugged forward by their interlocked hands when she pulls Daichi into a tight hug.

“I always wanted you to find something that you loved, that would make you unique,” his mother says, quietly, and it is probably the most syllables Suga’s ever heard her utter at the same time in the history of their acquaintance. “I didn’t ever want you to feel trapped.” There’s an odd sense of “like I was” in that sentence and Suga feels a throb of some emotion too huge for him to handle right now at the thought. “I wanted you to find something that would make you happy.”

“Suga makes me happy,” Daichi says. “Suga and volleyball.”

“I know,” his mom says. She pauses for a moment, then turns and suddenly pulls Suga into a hug as well. “I’ve always had a good feeling about you, Koushi,” she whispers into his ear, and now that huge emotion in Suga’s chest is definitely, definitely guilt. It doesn’t help that Daichi is beaming at him over the top of her head and Suga feels the old, incredibly comfortable desire to kick him in the shins. It’s a nice touch of the familiar in an evening that has felt more and more uncomfortable and bizarre and Suga relishes in it.

Daichi’s mom pulls away, smiling gently at the two of them. “Daichi, you should not tell your father yet. We will handle the sports medicine discussion when you decide which colleges you’re going to try to test into. I’ll help ease him into it. The discussion about you and Koushi will likely need to wait longer than that.”

Daichi lets go of Suga’s hand in order to pull his mother into a bear hug. “I figured,” he mutters into her hair. “But thank you, mom.”

“It won’t be easy,” she warns them. She suddenly looks exhausted, the streaks of silver in her dark hair seeming to glimmer in the hallway’s half-light. “This is a difficult path, Daichi.” A soft smile, again, and this is more than Suga’s ever seen her smile before, too. So much for the robot diagnosis. Currently, Suga is considering replacing it with ‘angel.’ “But times are changing. I’ve heard that even celebrities are now open about these sorts of lifestyles.”

Daichi starts laughing, long, loud belly laughs that clearly startle his mother, and Suga absolutely can’t stop himself from smacking him on the shoulder. This only makes Daichi laugh harder. He grabs Suga’s wrist as it retreats from the smack and starts tugging him towards the stairs. “We’ll be upstairs, mom,” he says.

“That’s fine. Remember to stay subtle for a while, Daichi,” his mother says, before drifting back towards the kitchen.

Suga blushes at the connotations of that ‘subtle.’ He wants to protest but also would rather tear out his own tongue than say anything about it at all.

When Daichi closes his bedroom door behind them, there’s an air about it that has never been in the room with them before. Suga cannot seem to stop blushing. Fortunately, Daichi seems to be having similar problems. He’s also smiling the largest smile Suga has ever seen him wear, which balances out the embarrassment, somewhat.

“Well,” Suga says as Daichi turns to face him, crowding him up against yet another door. “That’s one way of assuaging my fears, I suppose.” He pauses, then frowns and kicks Daichi in the shins. Lighter than usual, but still a kick. “I can’t believe you told your mother that you love me before you told me.” He almost can’t believe he’s saying it as he says it, heart throbbing in a way that’s almost painful as he yearns for something he absolutely can’t put into words.

“Suga,” Daichi breathes, still grinning at him in a way that makes it seem like his face might split in two. That’s how Suga’s suddenly restored smile feels like on his own face, at least. “I’m in love with you.”

“So I’ve heard,” Suga responds, knowing he is a truly embarrassing shade of red by now. At least he hasn’t started crying. His throat is convulsing in a way that makes him feel like tears are definitely an option. “I also heard that I should wait for someone who deserves me, so I’m not sure…”

Daichi laughs, a breath against Suga’s cheek. He leans in, nuzzling against Suga’s neck. It’s the most perfect feeling in the entire world and Suga lets his arms slowly wind around Daichi’s back, finally learning what that mass of muscle feels like inside his arms. 

Daichi hums against his neck, which makes Suga shiver and pretend that he didn’t just spill a couple of tears onto Daichi’s back as all of his plans for the future suddenly shatter and recombine into a new, beautiful whole. “I love the way you try to take care of everyone,” Daichi says, softly. “How you look out for people no matter what. That you think I’m something great, even though I’m the most mediocre human being alive.”

“D-Daichi!” That’s too much. Suga kicks Daichi’s shins again and, as he laughs and stumbles off balance, Suga quickly uses his hip to turn them, flip them, taking the opportunity to press Daichi up against the door instead. This is what their relationship has always been. Suga’s looking forward to that continuing. Plus more. More, too.

“Are you kidding?” he asks out loud, voice a little bit broken with more tears he is absolutely refusing to let fall, still not entirely sure he’s doing this in real life and not some kind of crazy, wonderful dream. “You’re so honest and caring and brave… If I could stand a tiny chance of deserving you, I’d jump for it.”

He must have said something right, because Daichi leans in and kisses him again. It’s soft and hesitant still, despite everything, but Suga feels himself melt into it anyway.

“Well, I suppose we’ll just have to do everything we can to deserve each other, then,” Daichi says, still grinning.

“We’ve got all the time in the world, I suppose,” Suga observes. Ah, they’re being so cheesy they’re going to laugh at themselves later. Suga’s never going to ever stop smiling, seriously.

Daichi makes a face, making Suga laugh now. “Yes, and we might have to spend a chunk of that time just acting like we used to, at least for a while. I’m sorry.”

Suga just keeps smiling. He’s definitely not going to stop, not anymore. “That’s okay. I like acting like we used to. I planned to keep that up anyway. Plus, I hear the times are changing. In fact, did you know there was this extremely popular celebrity--”

He laughs into the kiss that Daichi cuts him off with. He could get used to this, too, even if it’s just in secret for a while.

All things considered, Suga thinks, leaning against the immovable rock that is his best friend, able to rest at last, it’s nice to finally have some good karma.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I fear no fate](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11632209) by [seiji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seiji/pseuds/seiji)




End file.
